Ten Little Bohos
by streco
Summary: The Bohos take a trip to an island off of Florida, and live in an apartment complex owned by the Greys. While testing out the complex, things go terribly wrong. They’re locked on an island, and a murderer is locked with them. [Canon couples. Angel lives]
1. Prologue

**A/N: **Okay, I started this earlier than I thought I would, but I got bored when I was supposed to be writing a science essay. Feel privileged :)

BTW, obviously there's going to be character death. And I had to make Angel alive, because I needed ten Bohos.

This poem is originally "Ten Little Indians" by Agatha Christie. It usually says "Ten little Indian boys... etc" Replace Bohos with Indian boys and you have her poem. And I don't own it.

_Summary: The Bohos take a trip to an island off of Florida, and live in an apartment complex owned by the Greys. While testing out the complex, things go terribly wrong. They're locked in, and a murderer is locked in with them. One by one the friends are killed, leaving the others to figure out who's killing in this whodunit_.

**Prologue**

_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

"We really need to get the hell out of here."

The Life Café was where the Bohos had met that particular meeting—all ten of them. Mimi Marquez sat next to her boyfriend, Roger Davis. Well, on top of him, rather. Next to them, Tom Collins and his boyfriend Angel Schunard held each other in a tight embrace. Angel was decked out in drag and was looking particularly attractive, and Collins was decked out in... well, a beanie and a joint.

Not everyone could look as amazing as Angel.

Across the table, Mark Cohen was kissing his girlfriend of one full year, Samantha Westwell. She was giggling and trying to work the camera out of Mark's grasp, but he kept his eye on it, even as he kissed her deeply. Next to _them _was Maureen Johnson (even though she was Mark's ex, the two of them managed to remain friends) and Joanne Jefferson, lovers and fighters the same.

And the newest addition to the group, two people they'd reacquainted with in the past seven months, Benjamin Coffin the Third and his wife, Alison Grey. Benny had been best friends with the other Bohemian men, but when he married Alison, his father-in-law wanted him to force them to pay the rent Benny had assured was taken care of.

However, Benny apologized and gave back the money later, not caring about his job with Mr. Grey. Though Roger was still suspicious about him, Benny had pretty much been initiated back into the group, and Alison had been just as welcomed as he had been.

Now Benny was making a suggestion. "Come on, can't we all just pitch in and, like, go rent a house somewhere? On an island? Away from everything?" He took a swig of beer.

"Yeah, Benny, _sure_," Mark chimed in, moving away from where Sam was still trying to kiss him. "Where are we gonna freaking find a five bedroom house that we can afford? On an island? Please. I bet we could all pitch in and find one, but not one with five bedrooms."

Collins shrugged and took a drag of his cigarette. "I'm sure we could manage it. Maybe not five bedrooms, but if there were three of them, and then a spare, and maybe the living room? I think we'd be able to pull it off. And it sounds like a great plan to me. Better than that bullshit Santa Fe thing we had goin' for a while," he laughed a deep laugh and Angel playfully smacked him upside the head.

Alison lifted her head from Benny's shoulder. "My Dad was actually talking about this apartment complex his company just built," she threw in, taking a drag of her cigarette. Her straight orange hair dangled near her ribs. "He always has someone live in it to try it out, I'm sure he wouldn't mind if we experimented. It's on an island off the coast of Florida."

Instantly, all attention was on her. "Tell us more," Benny said, nudging her so she would keep talking. Smiling, she realized that this could actually work. Her dad would _love _to have a group of people try out his apartment, and he'd trust his daughter any day of the week.

"I've only heard a little bit, but it's just your regular ol' apartment complex. Five stories high, ten rooms on each floor. There're two big elevators in the middle that separate the halls, five rooms on each side of the hall. The single rooms have a kitchen, one bath, a living room, and a bedroom. The double rooms have a kitchen, two baths, a living room, and two bedrooms."

The Bohemians were grinning as she spoke. "There's one quadruple room on each floor. They're better known as party rooms—they have one huge living room, four bathrooms, three baths, a _gigantic _kitchen. That could be where we hang out and get drunk, and then each of us can take a room on the same floor, or we can spread out. If we ever get sick of each other, we'll all spread out—two people to a floor, one person to a hall."

The idea sounded better the more she talked about it. "This sounds like a great idea!" Angel squealed, and Mimi agreed with her. "I'm sick of New York. Of course, I'll miss it when we're there, but an _island?_ Off the coast of Florida? Imagine how warm it is down there!" she cried.

"I think we should do it," Sam admitted, looking at Roger. "What do you say, Rog? You're always the one who disagrees," she joked. Roger didn't look pleased, so she reached over and hugged him. "Awwh, I'm sorry, Roger, I didn't mean to make you mad. But, come on, wouldn't this be a ton of fun?"

Roger studied the blonde woman. "You're right, Sammy," he nodded, taking a big gulp of beer. "I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'm starting to get claustrophobic here, and I'd love to live carefree on an island off of Florida... finally go somewhere and do something that didn't result in consequence, you know what I mean?" he asked. Thought it was a rhetorical question, everyone answered in unison.

"I know what you mean."

"That sounds _great_," Maureen drained her cup. "The quadruple room could be where we all meet in the morning, you know, that's where we stay most of the day, but we go to our own rooms to sleep and dress and get ready."

"Everyone agree to it?" Collins asked, and raised his glass. The other Bohemians joined in, raising their own glasses.

"So," he turned to Alison, "when do we leave?"

**A/N: **_Anyone who can guess who the killer will be gets points. It could be ANYONE. It could be someone in the crowd at Over The Moon, it gets that specific. If you get it right, I have cookies! Plus, you get major bragging rights :)_

_And don't let loyalty get in the way._

_-snicker- I KNOW WHO THE MURDERER IS!_

_Oh, and I know this is short. It's just a prologue. Expect the chapters to generally be long. I have to tell this WHOLE thing in only ten chapters. Twelve, counting the prologue and epilogue._

_REVIEW!_

–_Steph._


	2. Choke

_Ten Little Bohos  
_1.Choke  
_**Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
**__**One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
**__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

"Woah!" Mimi cried, staring with wide eyes through the door as she stepped in. "Holy crap, this place is _huge!_" her squealing voice reverberated off of the walls and came back to her, making her ears ring. "Oh, my gosh, is this gonna be the lobby?" she looked up at the chandelier sparkling above her. "Wow."

Casually, Roger slid up beside her and wrapped an arm around her waist. Kissing her cheek tenderly, he tilted her backward, kissing her full on the lips. "What floor do you wanna be on, babe?" he asked, beckoning to the two large glass elevators that simply glimmered in the sunlight through the windows.

Stumbling in after her was Maureen, some sort of map in her hand. "Okay, so it says the elevators are working. We're in the lobby right now... woah, why is that over there?" She turned the map like it was a steering wheel, moving her head along with it in a different direction. Joanne came up behind her, her hands on Maureen's shoulders.

"Maureen, babe? The map's upside down."

"Oh."

Snickering, Sammy came in behind them. "Jeez, Mauren, it has a big notice on it that says _this side up_." She skipped over to the middle of the room, gaping at the size of it. "Holy crap, Allie, your dad means business when he builds stuff, doesn't he?" She walked over to the wall, rubbing her hand against the oak paneling. "Wow. Solid oak?" She whistled appreciatively.

"Which way is the quad room?" Angel wondered, looking in circles. "This place is huge, I swear, I'm gonna get lost!"

Collins snuck up behind her and scared her. "Don't worry, baby, I won't let you get lost."

"This way," Mark pointed down the left hallway, the first door. "This should be the quad room right here..." he pulled one of the card-keys off the hook of many. "Just a second..." he stuck the card in and the door swung open slowly, revealing a room of such beauty that it nearly blinded the Bohemians.

"Oh, my God..."

"I am _not_ worthy."

"We must bow down to its mightiness!"

"It's _beautiful_."

"Don't let me in there, I might break it."

"Oh, come on, Roger," Mark encouraged. "What are you gonna break? The beautification? Come on," he dragged his best friend into the room and threw him onto the huge sectional couch. Soon, the other eight friends joined them, excitedly opening cabinets and looking at all the food that Mr. Grey had supplied to them.

"Are you sure this isn't a hotel?" Sammy asked, her eyebrows knitting together.

"That's what it is!" Alison said in understanding. "It's not an apartment complex, it's a hotel. Sorry, guys. I mean, aren't hotels even better, though?"

Collins shrugged. "I guess so. It really doesn't matter much. I think hotels just have more space." He grinned. "I'm just pumped that your dad gave us food. Jeez, what's this, a month's supply? There is a _ton _of food in this room."

"There's food in every apartment, if you believe that," Alison told them. "He kinda went overboard, but that's okay! More food for us, right? Plus, it has..." she looked down at the map of the place. "A state of the art security system. It goes into lock down at night automatically. One of the guys who built the place knows the code... but he's the only one. Dad doesn't even know it."

"Wait—a _what?_" Collins asked, shaking his head. "A _lock down_?"

Roger cleared his throat loudly and stood up, waving the little booklet in his face. "Um, hell_o_, didn't you read the _pamphlet?_" and he sighed, obviously disgraced by this act of stupidity that Collins committed. "'There are many different kinds of wild animals here that could possibly break through windows, and hurricanes are common here. The lock down will ini—int—'"

Benny leant over his shoulder. "Initiate?"

"'The lock down will initiate lock down mode at nighttimes and when it senses bad storms.' So, the lock down will help protect us, even though we have phones and cell phones, et cetera—"

"Nope," Mark cut in, waving the phone in the air. He pressed the message button.

"Hey, guys!" That was Mr. Grey's voice, _way_ too happy for the old man he usually was. "I just have a few things to tell you about the Westport. First of all, the phone lines are down. I'm really sorry about that—it's just that this island really is generally deserted. We're going to supply the food _for _the people, so there won't be a need for stores. However, after you guys give us the feedback of your stay, we will be building telephone wires and so on.

"That also means that cell phones can't be used. This is an incredible hassle, I know. If there is anything terribly important, or something terribly wrong, you _should _be able to reach me by the intercom in the lobby. It was kind of faulty, but we did the best we could with that. There are directions on how to use it out there.

"All in all, I'd like to say, enjoy your stay and the ferry will pick you up in a month, the time you requested! Thank you for doing this again, guys."

_Click._

The ten friends studied each other for a while. "So," Angel stated, "this means that we're officially on _vacation? _That we have no way off of this island, no way to talk to anyone off of this island, no worries, no complications—nothing at all?"

Joanne nodded. "That sounds about right to m—"

_BEEP. BEEP. BEEP._

A loud groan erupted from Roger's throat. "I knew it was too good to be true," he mumbled, and he stuffed a pill in his mouth. He looked at Mimi expectantly and she took her own AZT, fumbling with a water bottle from the fridge. When Roger's gaze turned to Collins and Angel, Collins held his hands up and wrapped an arm around Angel's shoulder.

"We took one on the ferry in," he assured them, and Roger nodded.

"So," Mark flopped onto the large couch, "what do we do now, my friends?" he posed as if he were on a hammock, his hands behind his head and his eyes closed. "We could sleep and then eat, or we could eat and then sleep, _or _we could switch it up and sleep while we're eating—"

"How about we pick out our rooms?" Sammy interrupted casually.

A couple of minutes later, five couples were gathered around a single map and they were marking it with a pen. "Why don't we all just pair up and take the rooms around this floor?" Mark suggested, circling the room they were in and labeling it _Meeting Room._

"Well, my dad said he wanted us to test every floor, but I'm sure if we tell him that he did he'll trust us. We'll just have to make the other rooms look like we slept in them, or at least spent a little time in them." She grabbed the pen from Mark. "Okay, so who's gonna take which room?" she crossed the other four floors.

"Me and Collins will take the room closest to the lobby on this side," Angel offered, jerking her thumb backward in the direction of the room beside them.

"What if we're up partying all night in this room and you guys want to get some sleep?" Mark pointed out, but she merely laughed.

"Mark, honey, don't you worry about that—we'll be partying _with _you the whole time," she reassured Mark, and he nodded, chuckling to himself. "So we'll take that room." She took the pen from Alison and scribbled _A & C _on the room that the two of them had occupied.

"Why don't the rest of us just take the double rooms? So Sam and I will take this one," he pointed to the room two above the one they were currently in. "Alison and Benny, this one?" He asked, pointing to the one across the hall from Angel and Collins'.

Benny shrugged and nodded. "Sure, why not."

"Mo and Jo, want the one across from this empty one here?" It was two doors past Alison's and Benny's.

"Okay."

"And that leaves us with this one," Roger's finger landed on the one farthest away from the Meeting Room. He rolled his eyes. "Great, so if Mimi's too drunk to function, I have to carry her _all the way down here?_"

Pretending she was hurt, Mimi slapped him. "That's what babes are for, right, babe?"

Roger mumbled something in response and the room went silent.

They all knew Maureen would be the one to break the silence. "So!" she shouted, standing up from her seat. "What do we do now? What time is it?" she checked her watch and gasped. "Holy moly! It's already five! Can we eat something? Please? I'm really really really really hungry and I think I need to eat or I might blow a gasket or something. Please? Please? Please? Please?"

"Somebody answer her!" Mark grumbled in annoyance.

"Ooh!" Angel perked up, jumping up herself and walking over to where Mimi was seated.

"Meems, why don't we make some of our Mama's famous tacos!" she squealed, and Mimi stood up suddenly as well. "I'm sure we have all of the ingredients we need, don't you think, _senorita?_"

"Perfect idea!" Mimi agreed, and she tugged Roger by the sleeve over to the kitchen area, Angel close behind. "Babe, could you set the table for me and Angel? Just ten plates and some napkins, that's all." She pushed him in the direction of the plate cabinet and turned to Angel.

"Collins!" Angel called, "Collins, get over here, you're gonna help Mimi chica and I cook!"

Minutes later, the stoves were on, and the air was filled with the aroma of sautéd beef. Mimi and Angel were going to town—Mimi using her own mother's old recipe, Angel using her father's—going full out for their friends. Well, this was a special occasion, wasn't it? The first time they'd ever been able to relax? That counted as something in Mimi's mind, and she was going to make it heard that it counted.

Grinning, Mark pulled out his camera and got close in on the girls as they filmed. He definitely wanted this memory documented.

"Bam!" Mimi cried animatedly, adding a dash of salt to the meat and veggie mix. "Man, this smells so good—I haven't had these things for the longest time!" she added some minced peppers to the beef and sprinkled a tad of garlic on.

Next to her, Angel was loading on the spices—she loved her food hot. "Mimi, I've got the spicy food under control, how're you holding up over there, hun?"

"I'm doing good!" she managed out between peals of laughter. Cooking made her happy. Being with her friends made her happy. She felt so carefree and lighthearted that she wanted to sing. "This is awesome," she commented to her friends, who were waiting quite impatiently for the food.

"Yeah, whatever, Mimi," the Roger-zombie deadpanned, his eyes still on the frying pan in her hands. "Is that almost done? I'm really hungry."

Maureen was bouncing up and down next to him. "Hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry hungry!" she kept repeating the single word and it was starting to drive Joanne mad, so she put her hands on Maureen's shoulder and pushed her down gently into her seat.

"I'm finished!" Angel announced, jumping back and holding her spatula up in victory. "I win!"

Mimi grabbed the towel off of her shoulder and threw it down to the ground in frustration. "No!" she screeched, falling to the floor in defeat. "Curse you!"

"Just cook," Angel rolled her eyes.

Mimi giggled and nodded.

Once all of the food was finished cooking, the friends sat down, their eyes on the food in front of them. "We feast!" Collins declared, and picked up his taco carefully. Stuffing half in his mouth, he couldn't help but grin at the beautiful sensation that graced his taste buds. "Man, you two really know how to cook, eh?"

The two chefs nodded and laughed a little bit.

They spent the rest of the dinner just talking and laughing with each other, joking and bringing up past memories that some didn't want to talk about. Eventually, Mimi and Angel got up to make a second batch of tacos, which was when Sam noticed that something was terribly wrong.

"...guys?" her small voice barely even made a dent in the loud conversation Collins and Roger were having from two different ends of the table. "Guys!" she cried louder, terrified out of her mind. "Oh, my God, guys!" she shot up from her seat and dove under the table, heaving the still form of Maureen up from the floor.

"HELP!" she screamed, her lungs burning. "Shit, someone help Maureen!" she tried the himlic, but something was telling her that Maureen didn't need that. In fact, Maureen wasn't even moving, so how could she be choking?

"Holy shit!" Roger jumped up from his seat—he had been the only one who actually heard Samantha's cries of help. "Sammy! What happened? Oh, jeez—what the hell?" Maureen's face was red. He lowered her to the floor, pressing his mouth to hers. Now he was thankful that he'd learned CPR in his earlier years.

Furious, Mimi jumped from her seat and marched over to where she though Roger was lip-locking with her best friend. "Roger Tyler Davis! What the hell are you doing? Get _off _of Maureen!" she started trying to pull Roger off of Maureen, but Roger was determined to get Maureen breathing again.

"MIMI!" Sammy broke in, pushing Mimi away from Roger, "This isn't a time to be jealous! Maureen's—Maureen's—she's—" she couldn't continue—instead turned around and fell into the closest person's arms, who happened to be Mark. Instead of standing there and holding her, Mark put Sammy on the floor and raced to Maureen's side.

"Nuts!" Mark cried, crazy with pain and hysteria, "Nuts! Maureen is allergic to nuts!" He leaped over his chair and at Mimi and Angel, who were both frozen with shock. "What the hell, guys? Wouldn't you ask before you put frigging nuts in the frigging meal? What the hell is wrong with you!"

"Mark," Mimi said quietly in a shaky voice, "Mark, there _are _no nuts in what Angel and I made," she whispered.

Mark didn't hear her. "_Stupid! _How could you be so naive? I'm not the only one who knows that Maureen is allergic to nuts, am I?"

A huge commotion broke out, everyone surrounding Roger, who had pulled away from Maureen, looking white. Not because of lack of oxygen. Because he knew that Maureen was dead, and there was nothing he could do to help it. His best friend, the woman who helped him through the tough times, his most understanding and closest friend female-friend, was _dead._

"Mark!" Mimi shouted over the madness, "There _are _no nuts in what we made! The tacos we made don't have _anything _nut-related in them! No nut oil—nothing! No sunflower oil, or sesame oil; it's all _corn_ oil!"

Mark's face went down a shade of red.

"My Dad didn't even supply us with nuts!" Alison added, trying to see through her tears. She finally found the list and shoved it in Mark's face. "Look! This is a list of things he got. No kind of nut or nut oil is even _on _here!" she wailed and turned into Benny's chest, sobbing her eyes out as Mark tried to figure out what was going on.

Collins looked at Mark as he calculated things in his mind. "You, me, Roger, Benny, and Joanne were the only ones who knew Maureen was allergic to nuts. Someone must have brought nuts with them. Maybe for a topping to ice cream, maybe because—who knows. Maybe someone else knew and they... they meant to do it," he struggled to get it out.

Mark snapped his neck in the direction of Collins. "No." He stated firmly, shaking his head. "No one did it on purpose, Collins."

"Mark—"

"No!"

"You can't do this, Mark," Collins shook his head. "Denial is the last thing we need now." And he walked away in the direction of Maureen. Mark remained still for a moment, but then he spoke up.

"Everyone listen!" his voice quivered and he felt his knees knock. "Who the fuck brought the nuts here? Do you think you're funny? Speak up now and it'll be okay. Sure, Maureen will still be _dead_, thanks to you, but at least I'll know who I hate, and I can avoid them and maybe not tear them to shreds."

Silence.

"Talk, dammit!" He punched the wall closest to him and cried out in frustration. "Someone speak the fuck up!"

More silence. _The murderer clenched the nuts in their pocket_. No one heard the can shake.

"Where's Roger?" someone asked quietly, and Mark grit his teeth together. _Calm down, Mark, _he told himself, _it's okay. Obviously no one's going to speak up._ _Stay in control..._

"I don't—"

"Fuck this!" Roger made himself known by coming into the Meeting Room in a huff. "Dammit, this is fucking pissing me off! That's _my _fault! I was sitting right next to her, I should have seen her fall to the ground—I should have been there to help her, it's _my _fault she's dead! This _sucks!_ I need to get out of here, but the damn phone doesn't work, and _guess what? _I guess your dad didn't put enough of his precious time into fixing that intercom!"

Alison froze, knowing that Roger didn't mean his insult, but getting the point.

"That's right, _darling,_ the intercom doesn't work!"

_The murderer grinned to themself. _

"Roger," Mimi whispered, clinging to him, "it's not your fault, it's not Alison's fault, it's not Mr. Grey's fault. Just—just, have a heart for a minute, okay? Don't think about anger, just—...our best friend just—" she choked on her own words and gripped Roger tighter, holding him to her chest.

"Everyone empty your pockets, now!" Mark demanded.

He got the Bohemians in a line in front of the counter and demanded that they take everything out of their pockets. When he was finished, he had a large collection of lint and a grand total of eighty four cents. Finally, after many drastic measures, he was certain that no one was concealing nuts anywhere on their body, he searched their chairs.

The can of nuts was on Collins' chair.

Mark's heart turned to ice. _Collins? Collins _couldn't _have done it. He and Maureen have been best friends forever. They grew up together. _"C-Collins?" he asked cautiously, picking up the can of nuts and holding them in the air. "Collins, did you—why do you have... Collins?" he squeaked out the last word, not sure if he was awake or not.

"How did those get there?" Collins' face turned red. "Somebody's tryna' frame me, are ya? Talk, now!" he stepped out of the line and grabbed the nuts, throwing them across the room. "Who tried to frame me, dammit?!" he demanded, looking each of them in the eye at different times. "_Who?!_"

The Bohemians stared him down. They'd never seen him this mad before. "Collins, did you do it?" Joanne asked in a tiny voice, her thin frame being held up by Benny and Benny alone.

"You guys are seriously going to blame me?!" The anarchist roared, knocking a cup off the table. "Are you _serious! _Oh, my Lord, help me," he looked up at the ceiling. "Maureen and I were friends before we even _met _Roger and Mark. Why the hell would I frigging kill her?!"

Joanne gagged at the word and the woman started bawling again. Frustrated and obviously pained, Collins ran a hand through his hair. "I don't believe you guys. And I'm pretty pissed that someone would _frame me!_"

Steaming, he walked over to Maureen's still form, and became choked up on tears. "Don't blame me, please," he begged, looking them all over again.

"Who else could it have been?" Benny cried, suddenly furious.

"Any of them!" Collins shot back. "_Anyone _could have brought nuts and put them on my chair! _Anyone! _How could I have gotten them in Maureen's taco from _all the way across the table? _I'm not pointing fingers, I'm not framing anyone, but it could have been _anyone in this room!_ It could have been Mimi, for Christ's sake!"

The room seemed to stop moving at that second. "Why Mimi?" Roger grumbled, a growl emerging from deep in his throat. "Why not your precious Angel?" he asked, taking a step towards the significantly larger man.

"Roger, please," Mimi groaned from beside him.

"Because Angel isn't hyped up on freaking _drugs _eighty percent of the time!"

"Collins, baby—" Angel tried to calm her lover down.

"_What?" _Roger spat, shoving Collins square in the chest. "What the fuck did you just say? Please don't tell me you just insulted my girlfriend using drugs. You low—you low—I don't even know what's lower than you! You just stepped below the surface of the planet, you fucking dyke!"

"Roger!" Mimi hissed.

That was all that Collins could take. Raising his fist, he punched Roger in the face and sent him falling to the floor. Roger sprang back up and started beating on Collins with all of his might, his hair flying in all directions.

"STOP!" Mimi and Angel shouted at the same time, each of them going for their men. "Roger, if you put a _single hand _on Collins, I swear..." Mimi didn't really need to finish her sentence.

"Collins! Get the _hell _away from Roger!"

"See?" Roger spat out blood. "See? That short-tempered asshole got so sick of Maureen that he had to fricking kill her off! Better watch me tonight, I might wake up fileted with an apple in my mouth for all I'm worth, right? I just pissed you off, so now you're gonna go and kill me?"

Mark had to intervene before this got serious. "Please, guys! Come on, have a heart!" he sighed and tried to shake fatigue from his head. "We... we've gotta figure out what we're gonna do with her body." His body shivered with the eerie sound of speaking that. Maureen? Dead? She was so lively and awake and spirited and... and...

_Dead._

The room was still. "Mimi, I'm—" Collins tried to apologize, but the petite girl merely nodded.

"I know, Collins. It's okay." Her usually radiant eyes were lifeless as she stared at Maureen's body, obviously terrified. The thought of _Mimi _being sad made Collins tremble. Mimi was always happy, no matter what.

Angel wasn't so lucky. She knew that Roger wouldn't back down, but that was okay with her.

Picking up the limp body, Collins sighed and tried not to throw up.

_Choke._

**A/N: **_Maureen _:(

_My charger literally JUST came in. I was jumping with glee, but then I realized something else... my phone cord doesn't connect to upstairs anymore. I had to go shopping to get it to connect. YAY! SHOPPING!_

_I'm getting a lot of interesting guesses for who you guys think did it _:)

_Feel free to guess who you think it is. Just don't use clues to support it, just say who, and don't say why. And I'll keep a tally of who has the most accusations._

_And if you want to send me a long PM with your thoughts, feel free to do it! I love reading you guys' guesses._

**ONE THING: DON'T GO BY THE BOOK/VIDEO GAME. **I didn't even know there was a book OR a video game. This has nothing to do with the book OR video game, just the poem.

_Thanks for all the reviews! Keep them coming! I'm sorry all you Maureen fans _:(

_Oh, and you know the little thing that says 'The murderer clenched the nuts in their pocket' or whatever? That doesn't mean that the murderer is one of the Bohos... it could be someone else... –Twilight Zone theme–_

–_Steph_


	3. Sleep

_Ten Little Bohos  
_2. Sleep  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__**Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
**__**One overslept himself and then there were eight.**  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

It was hard for Collins to resist the strong urge to empty the contents of his stomach as he carried his best friend's corpse into the elevator and rose up four floors to the top one. Maureen Leah Johnson, the first person to ever know he was gay, his best friend from his childhood years, the one kid he could trust in grade school, was just killed because someone had put a few nuts in her taco. It was supposed to be a party. It was supposed to be a celebration.

But she had died.

The word "died" seemed to final to Collins. It bothered him. That's why he hated saying goodbye: it seemed much too final, like he would never see them again. Anyone who was a close friend he would surely see again, so he'd say "see you later" or something. Never goodbye, because he'd see them again.

But he wouldn't see Maureen again. She was dead.

And he had been framed for it.

His best friend! "Stupid," Collins muttered, shaking his head and biting his lip. "Stupid." Of course he was close friends with Mark and Roger, but Collins and Maureen had bumped into the two when they were at a nightclub once. Mark and Roger had known each other forever, he and Maureen had as well. It seemed like a perfect situation.

The room seemed to be closing in on him. He wanted to punch the walls, but Maureen was draped so daintily over his elbows that he decided not to rustle her beautiful frame. The elevator _ding_ed and he stepped out, careful not to trip on the space between the elevator and the floor.

He chose the first room he saw and managed to get the door open. With care, he placed Maureen's dead body on top of the comforter and sighed deeply. "I'm sorry this happened, baby," he whispered, "we'll give you a proper burial once we get home. I promise. I love you, and don't worry—I _won't _let the murderer get out of here alive. That's a promise, girl." He kissed her softly before stepping out of the room.

Now he'd have to hear it from Mark. The little twit had his heart set on the fact that Collins was "out for Maureen's blood." Groaning and grabbing at his head, the "blood seeker" stepped into the elevator again and watched as the floors slid below him.

Guess who was waiting at the bottom of the elevator? Albino boy himself, tapping his foot impatiently as the glass came to a stop and the doors split open. "Where'd you put her?" he spat, staring the generously larger man in the eye.

"Room fifty-one on the fifth floor," Collins returned in the same tone, but pain was inevitable in it. Mark's eyes softened a bit and he walked back to the Meeting Room with Collins by his side. "Look, man, I know it looks like—"

"It wasn't you," Mark looked up at him, his eyes glazed over with fresh tears. "I know it wasn't. You couldn't kill anyone, I was just so angry... and—and..."

"I got ya, man," Collins nodded. "It happens." _What, your best friend accuses you of murderering your other best friend? Oh, yeah, that happens all the time._

Mark shook his head. "Collins, now they all think you've done it," he told him solemnly. "It's all because of me."

Collins smiled falsely, hoping it looked real in contrast to the situation they were in. "Mark, not everyone listens to you."

The door to the Meeting Room burst open and there was Roger, making a beeline for the front door. "Roger, where are you—"

"Out." Roger replied coldly, heaving open the lobby door and walking out into the twilight. Both Collins and Mark sighed, one of the two casting their gaze to Mimi, standing in the doorway, holding onto the doorframe for dear life. The other, Mark, stared at the door Roger had just exited from, knowing that the pain wasn't going to help him much.

He knew it wasn't Roger. Roger couldn't deal with death; causing it would torture his soul. He knew it wasn't Collins. Obviously, Joanne was out. He trusted Sam with his life...

_Benny!_

It had to have been Benny. Alison wouldn't have done it—women don't kill anyone, let alone each other. Plus, Alison always loved Maureen. When people complained that she was annoying, she was laughing out loud. Angel never would kill anyone, and that was that. Benny must have done it, that conniving little bastard!

Of course the two of them had been close at one time, but Mark always thought that Benny felt sour toward Maureen after the protest.

Deep in his heart, Mark knew that no matter what he trash talked about Benny, Collins was still to blame. Joanne had her mind set on it. Sammy would think it. Angel would deny it, but deep inside even she'd feel it. Everyone would blame Collins. Hell, Roger even blamed him, he could tell by the way he stared at him. And Roger was a _brother _to Collins.

Mark ran a hand through his hair. He had finally screwed his best friend over.

They entered the room and immediately Collins sat down in a chair and dumped his head into his hands. Instantly, Angel was by his side, encompassing the big man in a hug fit for a bear.

Mark walked over to the shaking Joanne. "C'mon, Jo, you can sleep in me and Sammy's room tonight. We have a two-bedroom. If you'd like, you can share a bed with Sam, and I'll take the other room," he checked with Samantha and she nodded vigorously. "Come on, Joanne, let's get you in the shower."

As Sammy led Joanne out of the room and Mimi and Angel volunteered to help, Mark turned to the scene before him. Food was everywhere from the food fight that had erupted, things had yet to be cleaned up, and Roger was nowhere to be found. Alison, as soon as she regained her bearings, quickly followed the rest of the girls to help Joanne in any way possible. Benny muttered a swear.

"Shit, guys, who the fuck would do something like that? To Maureen?" he shook his head and kicked the floor.

Mark snorted. "Why don't _you _tell _us?_ Straight from the horse's mouth, first hand."

Surprised, Benny stumbled back. Collins felt his own mind race. _Now Mark's blaming _BennyMaybe he had proof. Process of elimination? He racked his mind for possibilities. Well, he wasn't about to think any of the women did it—they were very close with Maureen. How could Angel have done it? She was basically a walking life-giver.

Something deep in Collins' mind spoke. _Why is Mark so quick to blame?_

He shut that down. _No._ At this point, he could eliminate Mark. No matter what he denied, Mark _always _loved Maureen. He'd always have a special place for her in his heart, and vice versa with the drama queen. Maybe not in the same context, but it was there.

Roger couldn't even deal with death, so how the hell could he cause it? Who did that leave?

Himself and Benny.

Since he was pretty damned sure that his body hadn't taken over himself and made his heart and soul go freaking AWOL, that left Benny. But how would they come up with proof? Nothing could drastically be done unless they had proof... "Mark!" Collins cried out, as loud as he could. "Mark! Wait! Mark!" the perfect solution smacked Collins between the eyes. "Mark!"

Mark and Benny's conversation (could you call it a conversation? They were screaming insults at each other) stopped on a dime and Mark walked over to Collins. "What?"

"Your camera!" Collins breathed, "Weren't you filming? You must have caught who did it! You have to find your camera!"

That was all he needed to say. Within minutes the room was a mess—shit was _everywhere, _and Mark's camera was still nowhere to be found. "Keep looking!" Mark screeched, opening the stove and then closing it with a _clang_. "It's around here somewhere!" He opened each of the cabinets and then slammed them shut, frustrated beyond belief.

They looked for hours. Hours and hours and hours, until every square inch of the room had been searched through. Peeved, Mark collapsed on the couch. "What purpose did _that _frigging serve? Now this room looks like a shit sty, my camera is _still _gone, and there's an effing murderer in this place!"

Collins winced. "Mark, we could always just move upstairs," he suggested.

Mark nodded, setting his jaw. "That's what we'll do."

Pushing himself off the couch, Mark walked toward the front door. "I'll go get Roger. Collins, go get the girls. Benny, go with him." And with that he was out of the building, searching for Roger, who was probably halfway across the island.

"Benny..." Collins began, clapping his friend (he could still call him that) on the shoulder, "Mark's a little... out of control. Don't take his blaming seriously," he hid the fact that he agreed with Mark. If, in fact, Benny was the murderer, he didn't want to be targeted next.

Benny was silent.

The two of them walked into Mark and Samantha's bedroom, merely watching as the three women hugged each other tightly. "Hey, guys," Collins muttered quietly. "Where's Alison?" he asked them in a soft tone.

"In the bathroom with Joanne," Mimi answered, looking up at Collins. Finally, she couldn't take it—she had to jump up from te couch and throw herself into his arms. "Oh, Collins!" she wailed, clinging to his body and sobbing into his chest. "Collins, what—I don't believe—who could do that—I mean—it's _Maureen!_"

Shaking his head, he hugged Mimi back. "I know, Meems," he mumbled. He kissed the top of her head. "I don't know who could do such a thing to her." He held the petite girl close to him. Nuts had never seemed so obscene. "Guys," he announced discreetly, "we're moving up to the second floor. The Meeting Room is shit now, so we're just going to use the one upstairs."

The girls modestly nodded. "I'll go get Joanne and Alison," Angel soot up and walked over toward the bathroom door, knocking three times before entering gingerly.

Collins sighed. What a night to kick off their vacation.

— — — —

"Roger!"

Mark's calls were drowned out by the vicious winds whipping at his face. That had been one of the few downfalls of this vacation—for some reason, Alison had said, there were very very ferocious winds late at night. They'd brushed this off, sure that they wouldn't be outside late at night, but then again, nobody really expected Roger to run out of the house in a fir of pain and rage. Maybe Roger was just unpredictable.

_Right, _Mark chuckled to himself. "_Roger!_" he roared again, cupping his hands over his mouth. His right side felt oddly vacant—what Roger accused to be a man-purse wasn't by his side. A loud growl emerged from somewhere, and Mark did a quick 360. No matter how angry, Roger wasn't known to growl.

_Bears! _Mark suddenly thought. _Or maybe... a murderer?_

Deep down, Mark _knew _that the murderer wasn't one of his friends. It just wasn't possible. Even Benny, who he _thought _he had dirt against, wouldn't have the heart to _kill _someone. Whenever Benny caused someone pain he apologized a thousand times.

He thought he was taking the easy way out, blaming Benny. Who would be easier to blame? He'd betrayed them once and came back, he was the most vulnerable. It was kind of lame of him to do it, but he wanted Benny to blame because he had the most excuses. He didn't _want _to blame any of his other friends, in case it was true.

Alison was an open person. She loved everyone, no matter what. In a way, she was like Angel: peacemaking and full of life. As soon as she was welcomed, she returned the favor, and everyone instantly knew why Benny had chosen a woman as nice as her. Could she have done it?

On his side of the fight, he was _sure _that Samantha wasn't the murderer. Did it need to be clarified? In the short year they'd known her, Sammy had proven herself a best friend to Maureen, which was a slight downfall for Mark—Maureen told Sam all of his secrets. Especially the embarrassing ones. Sam didn't have a heart of stone, she couldn't kill _Maureen._

"Roger!" Speaking of him. Roger didn't do it, either.

In his mind, Mark went through each of his friends, and anyone he _knew_. How could _any _of them committed such a crime? It really could have been _any _of them. _Any _of them could have figured out that Maureen was allergic to nuts. Roger, Joanne and himself were the only ones who knew directly, but it was so strikingly possible that one of the others could've found out any other way.

He rifled through all of the people who ever knew Maureen. The manager at the Life? Maybe he tapped in on the conversations and kept track of the nutlessness of Maureen's orders. _Right. _Nanette Himmelfarb? Did she know Maureen enough? _Okay, Mark. _Could it be... the Man? Well, he never knew _Maureen_, but he _did _know Roger and Mimi, and didn't he go to Maureen's protest? Maybe one of his closest relatives was trampled by a cow in their early stages of life and ever since he had this weird thing against cows. _What the hell? I'm going crazy._

Stressed, he brought a hand to his forehead and sighed deeply. He realized he'd been standing in the same place with a total look of distance on his face for a long amount of time, just screaming Roger's name over and over and over. IT was starting to get a little on the chilly side, and after he noticed this he started shivering.

"_Ro—!_"

"Mark, would you stop screaming at the bottom of this tree? I'm _right here._"

Craning his neck upward, the statement was affirmed. There was the long-haired wonder himself, hanging from a tree branch. "I saw something huge start running toward me, so I booked it and hid up this tree. Hell, it probably could climb trees, but I didn't know what to do. I lost my way and figured I wouldn't make it back alive anyway."

Pretending to be brave failed Mark at that moment. 'Um, okay, why don't you, um, get down and maybe we'll, um try to get back?" Nervousness oozed in his voice. "I think I, um, remember the way." _Um, um, um, um._

"You always say 'um' when you're nervous," Roger laughed, and, with grace that Mark was almost unworthy of, jumped from the tree and landed softly. "Don't look at me like I'm a ballerina, Mark."

Well, at least he was high in spirits. "Yes, I do," he confirmed. "I always _have _said 'um,' even back in Scarsdale."

"Maybe you should work on that."

_Right, Roger. It's at the top of my list, below stay alive but above get over the loss of my first love. I'll get back to you on that one. _"Okay, I'll try," he gulped, trying to sound confident. The squeak in his voice proved failure.

It started to rain. Not hard, but a light drizzle.

Something hit Roger that moment. To this day he doesn't know why, but it did. "Shit, Mark!" he screeched, bursting into a run. "The lock down! Ah! We're going to be stuck out here, because she doesn't know how to shut it off, it's impossible! Oh, my God! We're going to die!" his running sent him into a frenzy, yet somehow he made it to the hotel.

The rain started pouring down from the sky, the clouds seeming to open up.

When Roger ran into the door, nothing happened. "Open up!" he pleaded, yelling, and Mark went for the windows. The wind whipped sticks at his face. "Come on, please, help!" Just open the door!" It was pitch black out now, the sky looked like it had sucked in the moon and left them with no light whatsoever.

A muffled voice came from inside the door. "I can't open it!" the voice was equally terrified. "Listen to me! _Do not _stay near the hotel! The bears are attracted to it at night! Get as far away as you can without getting lost and hide in a tree! _Do you hear me?_"

Roger nodded, looking over his shoulder. "Yeah, I hear you!"

Loud banging came from indoors. "Benny, stop trying to bust your way through the door!" The person tried to say something else, but a loud crack of lightning cut them off.

Roger flipped so his back was against the door and he studied a blob off in the distance. At first, he squinted, unsure of what it was, but then his eyes widened and he screamed bloody murder. Mark felt his blood sing with fear. What? What, Roger, what is it?" he could feel sobs trying to rip through his throat as he tried to talk to Roger.

"Mark, _run!_"

Mark had _never _been one to disobey orders.

And so he ran. He ran like the wind. He ran for Maureen. He ran for Samantha. He ran for Roger. Well, actually, he _told _himself he ran for these people, but in all trut, he was running because he really wanted to live and he was quite terrified of bears.

There was a loud noise (a battle cry, maybe?) and the blob came tearing toward them. Mark pumped his legs, pinching his thumbs, trying to get the pain to transfer into adrenaline. Far ahead of him, Roger scurried into a tree, cheering his friend on. "Hurry, Mark! Come on, you have this! Come on!"

The he tripped.

Face first, Mark Cohen _tripped _into the mud at the worst possible time in his life. His glasses went flying across the dirt, and his new blurred vision rendered him incapable of sight. Instead of dwelling on this gruesome fact, he shot to his feet and flailed wildly in the direction he thought was correct. The direction toward Roger.

Wrong. The being ran into him and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

Up in the tree, Roger cursed. His best friend had just been ran into by something that _clearly _wasn't a bear. In fact, the thing looked like a human. A man. From what he could see, there was no hair, and he was a very muscular man. So here he was, cowering in a tree from a Tarzan, while his best friend was on the ground, lights out.

Frankly, that pissed Roger off.

With stealth, he hopped from the tree and approached the figure. Whatever it was charged Roger and stuck out its leg, kicking the rocker in the jaw and sending him flying back into the mud. The coppery taste of blood entered his mouth and he felt one of his back teeth jerk out of place. He turned his head and spat it out, fury surging through his body.

He took two steps and went to punch at him, but he drew away, ducking and doing some sort of roll. "Get out of here!" Roger seethed, kicking the man—_hard_—in the chest.

The guy fell to the ground, wheezing, and looked up at Roger. "_Roger?_" he choked out, holding onto his chest.

_Collins!_

Roger dropped to his knees and crawled over to his friend, apologizing. "Oh, my God, I thought you were the _murderer!_" the two said at the same time, and then laughed. "Jeez, that bear knocking the breath outta me wasn't too pretty, and then _you_, running so _fast... _I don't think I have any air left in me," he chuckled. "Where's Mark?"

"Good question." He blinked. "And, wait—rewind. _Bear?_"

As if it were planned, Mark came stumbling out of a bush and rolled head over heels. "There's something out there!" he screamed, and then turned his attention to Collins. "Collins? Go kill it! There's something out there, it's going to kill us!" he hid behind the big man.

"I came out after you guys didn't come back," he said to Mark. "We were all worried sick. Of course, I forgot the lock down would screw me over, but it's great that you guys are alive."

There was a rough gust of wind and some sort of creature roared. Mark jumped a mile in the air and looked around feverishly. "I swear, there's something fucking out there!" he pulled Roger ot his feet and motioned for Collins to join them. "I can hear it coming, c'mon!"

The three men started tearing through the forest. "Mark, bears can run faster than we can, you know," Collins informed over the clashing thunder. It was still pouring.

Mark wished he had windshield wipers for his glasses, because rain and mud was everywhere. The growling from behind them only grew louder, and Mark screamed. _Just keep running, _he reminded himself. _Never stop running. _He was certain that Roger and Collins were in front of him.

Then he realized that he was alone.

"Roger?" He screamed, spinning around. "_Roger? Collins?_" No response.

He almost had a heart attack when someone's arms were underneath his armpits and he was being raised off the ground into a tree. When he turned to face his attacker, he saw Collins, equally terrified. "Collins?" he asked, dazed. "Collins, where's Roger?" his words were slurred from the fear still trying to escape his train of thought.

Collins moved to the side the tiniest bit on the branch to reveal Roger, curled up near the trunk of the tree. A hand was drawn to his face, like he was making sure it was still there. Mark noticed something really wrong—he was crying. And not only that—he wasn't only crying—he was _bleeding._

Bleeding. Injured. Roger Davis was bleeding. A lot, from what he could see.

"Why is he bleeding?" Mark demanded, trying to scurry towards his hurt friend, but almost losing his balance. He allowed Collins to steady him as he pressed for answers. "What happened?" he asked, still trying to lean so he could see Roger. "Why is he bleeding? What the hell?"

"A bear," Collins explained solemnly. "We all got split up, I found him with this..." he shivered. "A huge bear, like, on_ top_ of him. I hit it with a huge stick that I found, it backed off for a second, long enough for me to get Roger out of there. He tore a pretty big hole in Roger's chest, and his face is pretty mauled. I'm just glad I got there before...before..." he trailed off.

"Are you sure it wasn't the murderer?" Mark questioned, leaning a little bit more.

Collins shook his head forcefully. "No, it was definitely a bear. I swear. It was huge, and furry, and it _sounded _like one. While I was pulling him away, he just kept repeating Maureen's name over and over again, like he was... I don't even know. He was just afraid that he was going to end up like Maureen—dead. I think the pain of her being dead is finally hitting him."

Nodding, Mark knew he'd heard this before. "Like with April," he said rhetorically, and Collins agreed. "It finally all came down to him in one thrash of reality."

"What do we do now?" This was a new voice, and Mark turned to look at Roger, his face completely covered in blood, tears mixed in. He couldn't help but wince—he'd never seen Roger look so... helpless.

"We wait," Collins answered.

"For what?" Roger spoke again, trying to wipe the blood off his face but not succeeding.

"For the morning."

— — — —

If she had to, Alison would pace a hole through the floor. If pacing would give her answers, she would do it all night long. No matter what. "Who killed Maureen?" she asked for the tenth time in the last minute, and Benny, making himself a cup of coffee on the other end of their hotel room, shook his head.

"I have no idea," he admitted.

Frustrated, Alison brought her fist down on the counter. "No! Wrong answer!" she sighed heavily and sat down, only to rise back up again and start pacing some more. "That's all I've been hearing all day long... I want some damned _answers!_" She shook her head, the tears flying off of her face. Maureen. How could Maureen be dead?

"Allie, baby," Benny soothed her, trying to hide his own agony, "everyone wants answers. Nobody understands who could do such a thing to Maureen. It might not be one of us," he told her, "someone could be on this island right now, out in the storm, waiting for the lock down to shut off so they can kill us."

Very visibly, Alison shuddered. When her lover noticed this, he put his hands on her shoulders and squeezed. "Allie—"

"Benny," she whispered, reaching up to put her hands on _his _shoulders, "Maureen was my _best _friend," her quiet voice quivered. "I will not rest in peace until her murderer is found," she spoke defiantly and stomped her foot. "This was supposed to be a _vacation, _and look what it's exploded up into."

He shook his head, a tear rolling down his cheek. "I know, babe."

— — — —

The bedroom where the four women were in was so eerily quiet that it scared Mimi. They thought that they should be talking about _something _at least... but nothing seemed to be right. She'd try to start talking but nothing would seem relevant to what was going on... nothing at all.

"So who do you think did it?" Joanne mumbled from underneath her blanket, which was covering her face entirely.

This shocked the other three girls—Joanne seemed to be the least likely person to say it. "I—"

"It's better for me to talk about it," Joanne confessed, pulling the blanket away. "Pain was always easier for me to talk about... and I don't want to bring down this vacation."

More shock.

"Don't look at me like that," she tried to kid but her eyes were filled with pain, "this is supposed to be..." she sighed, "a vacation. I'm going to try to put this behind me for now... and we'll deal with it when the boat comes to pick us up. What else can we honestly do? We can't just be sad this _whole _time... can we?"

_Sure, _Mimi was about to answer, but she wanted Joanne high in spirits. If she could hold herself together, then everyone else could as well. They'd deal with it.

The next morning the guys came back, and Roger's wounds were tended. The worst of it was the gash in his chest, which was fixed easily by Collins (he'd taken some medical classes at one point in time). All in all, it just hurt a bit when he breathed too hard, and Collins guessed that it'd heal soon.

And they lived their lives.

Two days passed, and they finally decided to get back into the swing of things. They walked into their Meeting Room in a glum mood, but it only took them a short time to realize the real reason they'd come—to _relax. _Things would never be the same, of course, but they could play pretend for a little while, right?

They all got very incredibly drunk. The horde of Stoli that Collins had brought was dished out to everyone and they drank, laughing about the craziest things that seriously shouldn't be funny.

The night ended and couples returned to their rooms, Joanne remaining in Mark and Samantha's room for another night.

The next morning came very quickly, and the first ones up were the three men who'd survived the night in the wild. They could take alcohol very easily and were barely hung over, so they took it to themselves to make breakfast. "Angel's sleeping like a baby," Collins remarked. "She could never drink well," he chuckled.

"Mimi can, but she sleeps in late anyway," Roger snorted and finished making the coffee, pouring he and his friends cups.

"Heh," Mark laughed nervously, "Sam can't drink at _all_. She'll be asleep all day, at this rate."

The next people awake were Benny and Alison, walking in side by side. "I smell bacon," Alison muttered sleepily, and the boys laughed. "What? I'm like a moth to the flame when it comes to bacon..." she drifted over to where Collins was preparing it. "Yum, Collins, you always _did _make great bacon."

Benny helped set the table and Alison sat down, holding back her urge to jump up and stuff all of the bacon in her mouth.

Mimi stumbled in next, soon to be followed by Joanne. Samantha came in last, looking like a train wreck in its entirety. "Jeez, Mark, I thought I told you to never let me drink that much," she complained, holding a hand to her head. "So _dizzy... _I don't think I've drank that much vodka at once before..."

They sat down to eat, and about halfway through their meal, Mimi noticed that Angel still wasn't with them. "Hold on, I'll go get her," she perked up and flew from her seat, grabbing a piece of bacon and fleeing from the room.

She walked down the halls and approached Angel and Collins' room, knocking a few times on the door before entering softly. "Aaaaangel," Mimi cooed, walking over to the bed. "Angel, wake _uuuu_p!" She dangled the bacon in front of Angel's nose, but the man in the bed didn't move.

"Angel?" Mimi asked, dropping the bacon and starting to shake the form. She put a hand on Angel's face and quickly recoiled it—it was _freezing cold._

"_Angel!_" she screamed, not loud enough for the people on the other side of the hall to hear, however. "Oh, my God, wake up, Angel... wake up..." the body didn't move.

She screamed bloody murder.

Across the hall in the Meeting Room, Roger heard Mimi's scream and dropped his fork, pushing back from the table so fast that his chair fell to the floor. Soon after he stood up his friends followed, running as fast as they could toward Angel and Collins' room.

"Mimi!" Roger screamed, and finally made it to the door. He forced it open and tore in, relieved when he saw Mimi moving and alive. But her hand was holding someone else's... _Angel's. _

"No," Collins choked out, and threw himself at his still lover's form.

"She's dead," Mimi cried, dropping the hand and kissing Angel's cheek. "Angel is dead."

Everyone in the room went into shock, and Roger felt his heart break again. Maureen... and now Angel? Without thinking, he fell to his knees and enveloped Mimi into a hug, squeezing his girlfriend as tight as he could. For some reason, he started apologizing... apologizing that this was happening to her. Two of her best friends—gone?

As Collins hugged his boyfriend's corpse and others wept, one single thought was heard around the room. _Who's next?_

Another victim.

_Sleep._

**A/N: **_An Angel of the first degree _:(

_Just for the irony of it all, I'm making Collins very interested in this case. He's gonna be very serious and all Law & Order (hmm. Why does that ring a bell?)_

_Speaking of Collins and Law & Order, I was watching that the other night, and he didn't show up. WHY? I was really PO'ed, the only reason I watched it was because I wanted to see Jesse!_

_I didn't get as many reviews last time, which was kind of depressing. Please keep reviewing. I can see those of you who have faved/alerted this story who aren't reviewing:O SHAME ON YOU!_

_Anyway. Sorry this kind of took long to get up, it's like 12 pages long and I DO have a life now! I went to my cousin's house (my cousin the RENThead) and I watched the movie like a thousand times because my LITTLE cousins (two are 7 and one is 10) LOVE the movie. –shivers–I mean, okay. That's kind of bad... first graders and a fourth grader?_

_REVIEW!_

–_Steph._


	4. Stay

_Ten Little Bohos  
_3. Stay  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__**Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
**__**One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
**__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

Not again.

That was all Alison could think. _Not again. Please, not again. This can't happen again. _How could another one of her friends be dead? Losing Maureen wasn't enough? Furious, she stalked out of the room and ran into the lobby, punching the intercom, pissed. "Work, dammit!" she cried, bringing back her bloody knuckles. "_Work, you bitch!_"

She sank to the ground slowly, sitting beneath the broken intercom. "Why?" she asked brokenly, shaking her head and placing it in her hands. "Jesus Christ, why _us? _A poor group of innocent Bohemians?" She sat and cried for the losses, for Joanne and now for Collins... who would be next?_ Allie, get a hold of yourself, _she told herself, _get up of you're gonna be the next one gone._

She stood up and brushed herself off, reentering Angel and Collins' room. The only one there was Roger, and he turned to face Alison. "Hey, Allie... Benny took Angel up to—" he choked on both names, "—Maureen's room. Collins and Mimi... I think they... I don't know... maybe... the other girls are back in the Meeting Room, they told me to wait for you... we should go with them."

Swallowing hard, Alison nodded, knowing how hard it must've been for Roger. She could see his eyes darting back and forth, his eyes open wide. Even she knew that death was tough on him because of what April did to herself... that was something that would never leave Roger, no matter what.

They entered the Meeting Room, Alison peeling off of Roger to go towards Benny, who was washing his hands numerous times under the faucet. "Touching the dead body..." he murmured, shuddering again. "It seemed so wrong, you know? Angel was always so lively... and moving... never so cold and... _still._"

Across the room and on the couch, Mimi and Collins were embracing, each of them sobbing for the dead Angel. Roger couldn't get it out of his mind... so much pain everywhere, and he couldn't escape it. All of a sudden he was thirsty, lusting for something he hadn't had in over a year...

_Pain._ He felt his eyes dart everywhere as his conscience taunted him. _Pain. How do you deal with pain, Roger? Oh, _that's _right, don't you completely ruin your life with drugs?_

_My life was already ruined, _Roger defended viciously.

_And it's not now?_

_I've got Mimi now._

_Do you? Or will she be the next to go?_

_Shut up! _Roger stood up in a huff and threw a cup across the room, beginning to shake when he heard it crash on the opposite side. "Shut _up!_" At this time he was aware that everyone probably thought he was a crazy schizo who hated himself and all of his multiple personalities. "Don't say that," he warned, icicles dripping off his whispers.

Suddenly, Roger was being guided into one of the bedrooms of the Meeting Room. He was plopped onto the bed and turned to his captor, who turned out to be none other than... Benny?

"Roger, I understand this is really hard for you," Benny began. "I know this is like a giant flashback and we just lost one of your friends..."

"I need to talk to someone really bad," Roger requested.

Benny was all ears. "Who?"

After thinking for a moment, Roger chuckled icily. "Maureen."

Looking hurt, Benny shook his head. "I can't help you there."

"Mark?"

"He's... trying to help the girls," Benny breathed.

Sighing frustratedly, Roger turned to the one person he could _always _talk to. "What about Collins?"

This made Benny angry—either Roger was a _moron_, or just a heartless freak. "You _honestly _think he's going to talk to a little brat like you about_ your _problems when the _love of his life _just _died?_"

Infuriated as well, Roger rose to his feet and stood over Benny with his six-foot frame. "A little brat, hm? Maybe, just maybe, O Spoiled One, this little brat had to go through a whole lot of _shit _to get to be the man he is today! Maybe Roger, the 'spoiled brat,' was never given _anything _to classify him as spoiled? _What then, _Mr. Westport?"

The landlord clenched his teeth and walked away. "Maybe it'd seem like you had a heart if you didn't... oh, what're the words you use on Mark? 'Detach?' Maybe you should accept the pain of loss for what it is—"

"_You think I don't accept pain?_" the scream was so loud that the door was open in a split second, and said detacher placed himself between the two arguers. "Mark, let go of me! I'm gonna give _this _little bastard a taste of pain!"

"Oh, please, Mister Murderer, don't go after Alison next, just so I know how it feels!"

"_ENOUGH!_" Mark ordered, and the silence that followed was deafening. "Guys, this is _not _a time to be fighting, okay? Angel was just killed, and the women need us."

_Women, _Roger thought, _women are always rendered incapable of brushing their own teeth when they face death. _"Collins needs us," Roger added subconsciously, more to himself than to his friends. "I should probably go out there..." he shuffled out of the room and into the main chamber, walking towards Collins.

The man was torn. Completely shattered. "Collins," Roger began, taking his hand and then pulling him into a hug. "Collins, man, I'm really—"

"He didn't deserve it," Collins sputtered through his cries of agony, "Angel didn't fucking deserve to die! _Why _did Angel have to die? I almost lost him before, to AIDS, and look what happens now—he's _burked?_"

Even though Roger had no clue what _burked _meant, he shook his head and hugged his friend more. "I know, it shouldn't have happened, and someone here is being a real son of a bitch for killing our friends. Maureen didn't deserve it, Angel didn't deserve it... whoever's doing this, I'm going to kill them with my own two hands if I ever find out who it is."

"I'm gonna help," Collins put in, and Roger could only nod.

— — — —

"That fuckin' _pisses _me _off!_" Samantha cried, pushing her way out the door. Mark was hot on her heels, almost afraid of what she would do. "That pisses me off! Someone killed _Angel? _Who could do such a goddamned thing like _that?_ I'm—I'm—I'm going to kill that mother, once I get my hands on that filthy—"

"Sam," Mark said wearily, unable to put up with her stream of cusses. He'd never been one to get angry when he lost someone. Roger always did it (except for the whole April thing, but eventually he got very angry), and he now learned that Sam was the same way. If he hadn't just lost two of his closest friends to murder within the week, maybe it would've turned him on, the way her nostrils flared angrily was kind of cute.

"—I will trash that person until the day they die, do you hear me? You can be my witness—right now, I'm saying that I will kick the living shit out of whoever did something to those two innocent, bright, happy people. They wanna murder us? Well _I _will _murder—_"

"_Sam,_" Mark pleaded, cringing at the word.

"—the shit out of them, hell, I'll murder them all the way into the next millennium, if I'm up to it. Which I will be, because I'll be fueled by the _pure _rage that I'm feeling right this instant, like I just want to squeeze the last bits of air out of their little _murderer's trachea!_"

She stood for a long time, breathing very heavily and clenching and unclenching her fists in intervals, until she finally seemed like the sweet Samantha he'd fallen in love with. "Are you done?" he asked quietly, almost afraid to look at her sweet face.

She took a deep breath. "Yeah. I'm done."

"Good," Mark responded. "Listen, Sammy, getting mad about it isn't going to save anyone or protect anyone. We need a plan to protect us."

Suddenly, her head snapped up. "What if Mr. Grey is doing it?" she asked, her eyes suddenly twinkling. "He could easily be manipulating us from somewhere. He probably planned it all out!"

The idea provoked Mark for a moment, but then he realized the realism of it. "I don't think so. Mr. Grey's a cheap man—after this happens, his hotel would be shit, and he wouldn't want to pay to fix it all. It seems probable... but I don't think Mr. Grey would do that to himself and his daughter. Plus, he would have no clue that Maureen was allergic to nuts."

"What about Angel?" Sam challenged.

"Angel was _burked_, Sam," Mark reminded her. Clearly, she didn't know what burking was. "It's when someone is killed, usually suffocated or something like that, and there's no marks on their body to show how it was done. The way it looks, because she was sleeping, someone probably sat on her chest and choked her—"

He stopped his spiel because of the look on Samantha's face—wide-eyed and horrified. "What?" he asked, taking a step toward her.

She jumped back instantly, her eyes not leaving Mark. "Mark, oh, my God—no! Mark..."

"What?" he asked again, suddenly terrified.

"How do you know all this?" she inquired through the tears that had started to fall. "Mark, you've been really... I don't know... sketchy lately... and I don't know what to..."

"You don't know what to what?" Mark pressed, taking a step toward her and grabbing her hand. "Sammy, I love you, you know that, I'm not going to hurt _anyone!_ Don't think I'm the murderer, I'm not! I'm the reason this family's together, I'm like the center of them... I could never hurt any of them!"

However, she shook her head and stepped back, turning around to leave. Her blonde hair did a flip and she stopped, her eyes full of tears. "Mark, I can't—"

Suddenly there was an outcry from down the hall and Roger's voice pierced the eerie air. "Oh, fuck!"

Marks started running.

— — — —

"This can't be happening!"

"Roger, did you look everywhere?"

"Of _course _I looked fucking everywhere!"

Roger and Mimi's room looked something like a war zone. Every one of the Bohos were there, each tackling a different part of the room. "Who the hell would take my goddamn AZT?" he asked, collapsing on the couch with his head in his hands. "Why would someone do that to me? Why? _Who _would do that?"

"A murderer," Mark seethed, and Roger felt Samantha stiffen next to him. He almost said something about it but he figured that he had worse problems at the time.

"Shit, this sucks," he announced, running a hand through his long hair.

Mimi sat on the armrest beside him, putting an arm around his shoulder and kissing him on the cheek. "It's okay, Roger. We can just give you Angel's—" she almost cried at the name, "—and you'll be okay." She realized that this was a wonderful idea.

_The murderer froze. They hadn't thought of that._

"That's a perfect idea, Meems," Alison stepped forward and nodded her head approvingly. "Problem solved, right?"

"What if we had different subscriptions?" he pressed. "What if Angel didn't have to take as many as I did?"

"She did," a small voice broke in, and the hunched form of Tom Collins stepped forward with a prescription bottle. "Here, heads up, Rog," he tossed the canister underarm and Roger caught it, checking the label on it. "She'd want you to have it," he added, and then he took a seat in one of the chairs.

"Thanks, Collins," Roger thanked him and stuffed the AZT in his pocket, sighing once more and rubbing his hand through his hair again. "I can't believe one of you would do that," he whispered to himself, shaking his head.

"What if it wasn't one of us?" Mark stepped forward to him.

"Why are you so damn optimistic?" Roger flew up from his seating position and met Mark halfway, staring down at him. "You're really starting to make me suspect you, dammit!" he cried. "Why don't you just accept the fact that one of us if a freaking sellout and wants us all dead? Why can't you accept that?"

"Because I don't _want _to!" The room silenced and Mark stood on his tippy toes to get a better view of Roger. "Would you want one of your best friends to be a _murderer? _Do you understand how painful this is to watch? To see you without the one thing that keeps you alive? I'm your _best friend, _Roger, I don't want to accept that!"

He walked away from Roger and stood in front of his group of friends. "I don't _want _to believe this! Why can't I think that it's some creepy stalker while it's possible? Do any of you seriously _want _to believe that it's one of us? Even for a second?"

No response. "That's what I thought."

There was a long silence, and then there was a violent cough that was attempting to cover the phrase "Mark's a fucking murderer" followed by another cough and an ever-so-fake sneeze. That was all he could take: Mark lurched forward and socked Roger in the face, and then turned around and stalked out.

As the door slammed shut, Roger growled and dove forward, but Mimi's small frame blocked him. That was all it took—Roger's face softened in an instant and he did the one thing that he'd been dying to do; he slumped up against her small frame and cried.

Patting his back, Mimi lead him over to the couch and let him lean against her, the two of them crying together. When he finally could talk, he spoke into her thin shoulder. "All I could think of was April," he sobbed, "she looked so peaceful... the only thing with April was her wrists... and Angel didn't even have a scratch on her..." he shook his head and pulled his head back to try to drain the tears from his eyes.

"It's okay, baby," Mimi soothed him.

"All I know," Roger wiped his eyes and sniffed a final time, looking at the teary eyes of his friends, "is that someone here wants me dead."

The room seemed to freeze in time and Roger shook his head, bringing a hand to his now split lip.

"And his name is Mark Cohen."

— — — —

It started raining as soon as he got outside. Silently he wondered if the god of water was out to screw him over, an answer that could only be supplied as yes. As he wandered through the damp mud and into the forest, honestly not concerned about the bears any longer.

The walk for him was a way to clear his mind. Could he be different and not be suspected? He'd always been afraid of being alone, so why would he _ever _kill his friends? No matter how much he added it up, it didn't seem to make much sense to him. At all. In any way.

"Mark!" He heard Samantha calling his name and didn't turn around. Why? So she could explain in full detail why he was a murderer? Punish him because he punched Roger in the face? At this point, he wasn't exactly sure what he wanted or what he cared about. He was too exhausted.

"Mark!" There she was again, the woman he loved and, in all truth, wanted to marry. In fact, he even brought an engagement ring with him—even though he was planning on proposing after they got back to New York, he kept it with him. Now, he was having second thoughts.

The rain started coming down harder, so he walked back into the building and collapsed into an uninhabited room, closing his eyes and wishing it away. "Is this the end of our friendship?" he asked himself, and he didn't want to answer... he was too afraid of what it may be.

— — — —

A few days later, the Bohemians gathered into the Meeting Room once again, just to hang around and get drunk. When intoxicated Roger and Mark got along just fine, as you could imagine.

Roger caught his eye on Sammy, who looked particularly sad. "Mantha—"

"Please, don't bust out the taunting names right now, Roger," Sammy pleaded, wincing as her friend called her by her "drunken name." They'd invented these one night when they were—you guessed it—extremely and incredibly drunk.

"Yeah," Collins remarked, "or we'd be calling you Roger Rabbit," he snickered at Roger's name.

"You should be talking, Thomas the Tank Engine," Mark chuckled.

"Shut up, Marky Mark," Collins retorted.

"At least we aren't vampires," Roger told Benny, laughing and remembering they'd started calling him that in reference to his last name. "Count Dracula The Third," he spoke in a British accent.

"Sloppy Jo," Joanne announced with a grin, pointing to herself.

"Sammy Whammy!" Roger cried, walking over to Sam and falling to his knees. She laughed and slapped the back of his head.

No one cared to mention the late Mo Money or Angel Hair, not because they forgot, but more because they'd rather not remember. The pain was just beginning to evaporate and they really didn't want to resurface it.

Mark could remember when he invented the nickname Sammy Whammy and taunted her about it for a week. He could remember when Mark was dancing on a table and Sam dubbed him Marky Mark. When he stared at her beautiful frame and looked into her dazzling light blue eyes, she looked at him as well, but then the two of them turned away.

After everyone had gone to bed, Samantha and Mark in two different rooms, Sammy escaped out into the night, walking through the forest. The fresh air calmed her in a way, the night breeze wisping her hair around. When she was through, she started her walk back.

The next morning, all was normal. As always, Mark was the first awake, and the first thing he made sure he did was walk down the hall to Sammy's new room. "I'm sorry, Sam, that you think I'm a murderer, but I still love you..." he rehearsed what he'd say to himself and then knocked on her door a few times.

"Come on, Sam, I _know _you're awake—you always wake up at, like six with me."

No response.

"Sam, I'm coming in," he announced and he opened the door. The first thing he noticed was that Samantha wasn't in the room.

"Sam?" he asked cautiously. "_Sam?_" this time more urgently.

_Murder,_ was the first thing that hit his mind, and then the panic seeped in. "Oh, no!" he cried, and then he took off into a run, out into the forest. He knew that Sammy left the building every time the lock down failed, and last night had been one of those nights. The storm had been horrible, and they'd managed to escape the worst of the damage.

"No, no, no, no!" he shouted as he dodged trees, terrified of what me might see when he found Sammy. "Please, Sam, you _can't _be dead... you can't..."

Then he tripped. Over something. He landed with an _oof!_, cursing his clumsiness. Twisting around to see what he tripped over, he almost gagged.

Samantha's body.

"NO!" he screamed, and crawled over to her, cradling her in his arms. From what he could tell, she had long slash marks on her wrists, and when he turned her over, a _long _one from the top of her neck to the small of her back. "SAMANTHA!" he cried, and then rested his head on hers. It was cold and wet, lifeless.

When he could see again, he spotted a small white note underneath a rock. He picked up the rock and held the note, scrunching his eyebrows in confusion.

_I decided to stay in Devon._

"Decided?" he choked out, and then let out another strangled cry. "HELP!" he stood up with her still in his arms. "HELP, SOMEBODY HELP ME!"

But no matter what he thought, it was too late. Samantha was dead. Another person gone, another one with barely enough of a description.

_Stay._

**A/N: **_Samantha. _:(

_Okay, so I decided to stop tallying the accusations._

_Elphaba does have one, however –dies laughing– I forget who said that, but whoever did kicks major ass._

_I figured people would be very PO'ed that I killed of Angel, but at least I lived through the night. I don't know why I didn't take such a liking to Angel, I was telling someone earlier that it was because of my short attention span. She died... so that didn't make her significant to me. Of course she was significant to the story_ _of RENT itself, but not to me._

_ANYWAYS._

_I have fallen into a RENT caused depression. Last time, RENT got me OUT of a depression... but now it's caused one. Because now I'm aware that I will NEVER get to see Adam and Anthony on RENT during this summer –cries–I AM DYING TO SEE RENT ANYWAY, but I wanna see my two faves do it :( –cries some more–_

_I bet you all know how I feel. Or, at least the RENTheads that haven't seen RENT on/off broadway yet. I LOVE YOU GUYS. I love the ones who HAVE seen it as well though. _

_**IF ANYONE HAS ANY INFO ON THIS SUMMER'S SHOW, LIKE HOW LONG ADAM AND ANTHONY ARE DOING IT, AND HOW MUCH THE TICKETS COST, ETC ETC, PLEEEEAAAASE TELL ME!**__ Thank you so much!_

_Someone said they were scrolling down just to see who died... stop it! Read the actual story, dammit:D_

_Something totally random: if you guys ever wanna see a pic of me and can't go on MySpace or are just to lazy to request me and check out my pics, I'm gonna post a link to a pic of me, just because I'm always dying to know what you guys look like, so I figured... I don't know _:)

REVIEW!

–_Steph._


	5. Chop

_Ten Little Bohos  
_4. Chop  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__**Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
**__**One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
**__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

The first thing Roger woke up to was screaming, and that alone got him out of bed in a quick snap. "Mimi," he spoke loudly whilst hopping out of bed and basically tripping into his jeans.

His mind reeled with fear. _Mark, not Mark. Mark can't go. Not Mark, not after all he's done... God, I didn't fucking mean it when I accused him... Jesus, Christ, Roger, get yourself together! Step into your pants... very good! Shit, shit, shit... not Mark! NO!_

As he pulled his pants up he walked over to Mimi's side of the bed. "Meems, get up, Mark's screaming!" _Oh, God, I hope he's not dead... I hope he's not dead..._

He'd always had tip-top ears. His parents had always told him that, Mark had always told him that, even Mimi told him it. He'd also always been a light sleeper, so even the muffled sound of Mark's cries woke him up. Maybe the desperation was the one thing that made it through to his brain.

"Hmm? What happened, babe?" Mimi asked sleepily, rolling over with a pleasant smile on her face. Her eyes opened a slit and she saw Roger's panicked expression. "What's going on?"

"Mark's in trouble, come on!" he grabbed her by the arm and tugged her out of the house, all the while screaming for the other residents to wake up and follow his lead. The only straggler who rose was Collins, seeming like he hadn't gotten a night's rest anyway. He really hadn't since Angel passed.

The three of them ran out of the building, Mimi still in her lingerie super short dress. Luckily for her it was warm outside. Unluckily there was a breeze, and the skirt part kept flying up revealing the leotard bottom beneath it.

The first one to reach her body was Roger, and he dropped to his knees. When he realized that her wrists were slit, he leapt back and almost tripped over Mark, who was huddled against a tree. "She—she—" Words left Roger and he was blinded, only seeing April's dead form in the bathtub substituting Samantha's, seeing April's pale blue eyes as lifeless as Sammy's were.

Knowing that he should be there for Mark, he stood up, trying to pull Mark with him. However, Mark was fastened down, his hands continuously wiping on his pajama pants. "Come on, Mark," Roger whispered, going back to his knees and looking him in the eyes. "Let's go over here..."

"He abandoned her!" Mimi whispered violently into Roger's ear, and if Mark had been in the correct state of mind, he would've heard. "He was letting her sit there while he sat back and cried... wouldn't he carry her back? Come for help?"

"Mimi, he was going to _propose _to her, he _loved_ her, and all of a sudden he finds her dead." He remembered he reacted similarly when April died. He was going to propose to her, and he found her dead in the bathroom the night he was going to."She _killed herself_," he stopped and took in a quick breath, his chest getting a pang of hurt. "Killed herself," he echoed.

"Roger, are you okay?"

"He's Jewish," Roger supplied randomly. "Mark's Jewish. He was never a _huge _Jew... like, he only said the Four Questions because his mom made him, and he still celebrates Christmas, but one thing he always followed was the Red Heifer story that he heard once."

Collins walked over to Roger. "Oh, yeah, I remember him telling me about that. When you guys found a body that time..." he waved his arms animatedly and looked at Mimi. "This one summer, they found a dead body, and apparently Roger and Benny and some other kid they were friends with all went over to poke it, but Mark couldn't because of this story he learned in Bar Mitzvah class."

Nodding, Roger looked down at his knees. "He was terrified. One time he touched a dead bird and he freaked out and his mom had to do this whole ritual on him, like to cleanse him of the... almost possessedness. Or whatever."

Involuntarily Roger's eyes darted to Sammy's body and he sucked in another deep breath, squeezing his eyes shut. "April..." he trailed off, groping out for Collins' hand. However, Collins didn't notice and carried Sam into the house, up to the room where all of the other dead people were.

"Come on, Roger," Mimi stood him up.

Sighing, Roger stood up himself and turned to Mark, helping his best friend to his feet. "Come on, Mark," he wrapped an arm around his shoulder and guided him into the house, his heart heavy with compassion. Jeez, Mark finally gets a girl who loves him for his dorkish ways, and then she has to go and kill herself?

_Devon. _The word echoed in Roger's mind. _Devon. Devon, Devon, Devon. Where is that?_

"She—she—why would she—?"

"I don't know," Roger confessed, almost tripping with the surprising emotion that was rising in his chest. "Nobody ever knows why they do it, Mark."

A memory played back in his mind then, one of when Mark was telling him the _exact _same thing when April killed herself.

They made it into the Meeting Room, and Mimi announced that she was going to wake up everyone else and walk back with Collins. In the meantime, Roger sat across from Mark and held his hands, looking into his eyes. "Mark, shh, it's okay, it's okay. You know she's happy now, Mark, and we're all still here... and it's a vacation, and... and _none of this was supposed to fucking happen!_"

Now he was crying as well, closing his eyes and pulling Mark into a hug. "Jesus, Mark, I'm so sorry," he admitted brokenly, "this doesn't deserve to happen to you, man, it really doesn't."

"It didn't deserve to happen to you either, Roger," Mark mumbled, and Roger shook his head. "No, it didn't, Rog, it really didn't."

They finally pulled back and Mark kept wiping his hands on his pants, staring at them disgustedly. "I have to do that fucking ceremony now..." he complained and then shook his head. "Is it bad for me to be pissed that she did this to me?" he asked, staring at Roger.

Suddenly aware that he was the pro at suicidal ex-girlfriends, he shook his head. "Not at all."

"Is it pathetic that I still fucking love her?"

"No," Roger shook his head.

The door burst open and in came Joanne and Alison, both still in their pajamas. They _collapsed _on top of Mark, smothering him in hugs and encouragement. For a while, Joanne and Mark embraced and cried over their lost lovers, and soon Collins joined, the three of them the only ones who understood the pain. Benny stood next to Roger.

"Shit," Roger remarked, rubbing his hands across his face. "Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. This is _really _bad," he concluded.

"I agree," Benny nodded solemnly.

"When I put her in the room, I noticed something peculiar," Collins noted, wiping tears from his eyes and pulling back from the hug they had going on. "I rolled her over to look at the slice on her back..." his voice filled with sorrow, "...and I noticed that where it is... it's _impossible _for her to have done it by herself," he concluded, fiddling with his beanie on his head.

The room went completely silent.

"Complete access to the back would be needed. Someone had to roll her over and do it with two hands, in contrary to her only using one to—um... _use_ the razor. So... that means we've got another murder on our hands."

_Silence._

"FUCK!"

That was Roger, exploding, slamming his fist on the table. Mixed in with his rage was agony, tears of complete and utter hopelessness. "What the _fuck! _We finally get a vacation, and this shit is what we get? Who's doing this? Tell me, now!" he ordered, his eyes raking the room for any sort of suspicion. The only sound that met his ears was that of Mark sobbing on the couch.

"I _will _get to the bottom of this," he seethed. "You think you can cause us pain, you lying, conniving backstabber? Yeah, let's see what happens when _I _fucking found out."

People switched positions. Roger, Collins and Benny sat at the kitchen table, discussing the matter, and the women bestowed their presence upon Mark, who really looked like he wanted to be alone and in company at the same time.

Devastation can do that to you, I guess.

"I haven't even been sleeping," Collins put in, "just devoting my time to try and figure this out. So, what I've noticed is that... well, it's still early, but no pair of lovers have been killed," he pointed out. "Joanne's still alive... I'm still alive... and, well, yeah, it's early, but Mark's still alive."

Roger motioned for Collins to continue.

"And... it's been going girl, boy, girl... so if both patterns serve, that means that Benny and Roger should probably watch out."

Mimi and Alison immediately cried out, clutching onto Mark tighter. The look on Collins' face proved that the last thing he wanted to be doing was talking about this, but he knew it was necessary. Everyone wanted to live, so everyone listened.

"We still don't know if the murderer is one of us," Mark choked.

Furious, Roger felt his fists clench, but Collins put a calming hand on one of them. "Chill out. He's in denial."

Somewhere in his heart, above all of the crazy accusations, Roger knew that Mark _couldn't _be the murderer. He couldn't. It was almost physically impossible for Mark to build up the courage to kill someone. Plus, this was his _wife-to-be_, after she accepted—of course she would've accepted—his proposition.

"It's not him," Roger told them, looking at his two friends (Benny finally being classified as one). "Mark didn't do it," he put his hands down on the table, "and that's all there is to it."

"I didn't do it," Collins looked down at the wooden tabletop. "I know I didn't. You have to believe me."

Benny and Roger exchanged a glance, and they nodded. "You couldn't have killed A—"

"Anyone," Collins cut in. "Not only him. I couldn't kill Maureen, _or _Samantha." Then he chuckled for a second. "They were such good people."

"All of them were," Benny agreed. "So vibrant and... full of youth..." he sighed. "I know I didn't do it."

This time, _Collins _and Roger were the two to look at each other. The first thing that hit Roger was _once a liar, always a liar,_ but Collins looked like he was in between the two. "I—I don't know, Ben," Roger admitted, taking a swig of his cup of water. "I mean, you _did—_"

Benny put a hand on Roger's shoulder, almost violently, and the rocker's eyes went wide for a moment. "I know what I did. It's in the past."

"Yeah, but you still—" Roger retorted in a smart allecky tone, pointing with his forefinger and thumb like they were a gun.

"But they're in the past. Back when I was stupid. I'm not stupid anymore."

Roger narrowed his eyes. "I'm sure."

Afraid that if they continued, the murderer would be the least of their problems, Collins butted into their little conversation. "Joanne didn't do it," he nodded, casting a glance over at the lawyer. "Kill Maureen? No way. Even though they fought, did you see how messed up she was when she died?"

"But Alison _did _tell me that Joanne wanted to put it all aside and live this vacation up," Benny reckoned.

"Well, so do I," Collins sighed. "I still do, no matter how impossible it may be. I just lost my love... the love of my life..." a tear streaked down his cheek. "But I still do want to have fun."

"Wait." Benny stopped for a second, the memory senses in his mind tingling. "Wait, wait, wait. Hold on. Wait a second. I remember this from somewhere..." he squeezed his eyes shut and held his head, blocking out the other noise in the room. He started humming something, not a song but more of a poem. "How did the others die?" he asked.

Roger looked aggravated. "_Nuts _were put in Maureen's _taco_—" he started, using a voice one might use with a child.

"No, like, one word to describe it. Metaphorically."

"Um... nuts?"

"No," Collins butted in, getting Benny's point. "I know what you're getting at. She was... poisoned? Choked?"

"Choked!" Benny stood up in a huff, the rest of the room remaining silent. "Ten little... choked..." his eyes were wild with discovery. "What about Angel?"

"Um," Roger tried to catch the train that had obviously left the station without his boarding. "Um... Angel was... biked?"

"_Burked,_" Mimi corrected with a laugh from the other side of the room.

"No... she... um... she was—"

"Don't think in terms of was," Benny shook his head, still trying to figure this out. "What did she do wrong?"

"She slept next to Collins, One Who Sleeps Like the Rocks," Mimi joked.

"She overslept!" Roger shouted, jumping up and down like a little two year old. "Right? She overslept? And Samantha—" Mark started sobbing across the room, "—... Samantha, um, she um... Samantha... um..."

"Okay, choke, and then overslept... Samantha... it's not suicide, because she didn't kill herself."

"Wait!" Mark choked out, and then hopped up, pulling the note out of his pocket. "This was next to her when she died," and he handed it to Collins. "It says something about Devon. That was a place that her aunt and uncle lived, way up north near Canada. It was always stormy and wet there, and I think she was referring to the—

"_DEVON!_" Benny cried, snagging the note. "Ten little Indian boys went out to dine...one choked... and then there were nine."

"Benny?"

"What's he saying?"

"Who the _fuck _writes a _poem _about this?"

"No, Roger, he's not _writing _it..." Mimi stood up and linked her arm through Roger's, "he's reciting it. I've heard it before. Ten little Indian boys stayed up real late..."

"...one overslept... and then there were eight," Benny finished, his voice terrified. "Oh, my God... someone's killing us by the lines of a _poem._"

"Call it coincidence," Joanne walked over, "and continue."

"Ten little Indian boys traveling in Devon," Benny began, and then looked at Mimi.

"One said he'd stay there and then there were seven," the two finished in unison.

"Holy shit," Mark remarked. "That's... that's..."

"I'll _tell _you what that is," Alison interrupted. "That's the most satanic thing I've ever fucking heard. Please, a fucking _children's poem _and here is someone _killing _us by it!" She pulled at her orange hair and sat down in the stool next to her, clearly angry. "That's fucking satanic. I don't believe it."

"Believe it," Benny told her, grimacing.

"Wait, so what's the next line?" Roger scrunched his nose up, deep in thought, trying to remember this from somewhere.

"Something about halves," Mimi closed her eyes and thought hard. "Dammit, this is what we were learning about the day I fucking dropped out of school!" she groaned. "I dropped out because I left my house, and we were analyzing this poem in English."

"We learned about it junior year," Benny supplied. "Remember?"

"I was in the failing English class," Roger muttered, "You were in, like, the advanced one."

"I was in English Four," Mark put in.

Shaking his head, Benny sighed. "I was in Two. Hardly advanced, Rog. I got sick the next week, though, so I don't remember it too well."

"Let's just be... cautious," Alison suggested. "What else can we do? They have us figured out. I think we should... I honestly don't know, actually."

"Maybe we should all sleep in different rooms."

"No," Roger looked at Mark sternly. "No way. That way, no one will hear us screaming and the murderer could get us easily. And it's not like we can all sleep in the same room, because then the murderer could kill us off at the same time."

"But if they're going by the lines of the poem," Benny said, deep in thought, "then wouldn't they all want us to die at a different time? Maybe we all should sleep in the Meeting Room from now on?"

"I need to get out of this fucking house," Mimi muttered.

"I second that," Alison agreed.

"Why don't we just have a little campfire then? Tonight? We'll all stay in view of each other, if someone dies, we all go frickin' postal on each other and whoever's AWOL is the murderer," Roger joked. "It's like they think this is a fucking game. A hilarious, entertaining, fucking _game._"

The room went silent and suddenly the murderer started chuckling. _It really is a game, _they thought to themself, _a beautiful game._

"Stop laughing and let's get ready for the campfire."

— — — —

The stars shined that night. The moon was new, but the sky shone with animosity. In the distance Venus could be seen, and the Northern Star was twinkling.

As Mimi and Roger walked out into the spread of land they had cleared and made look almost like an official campsite, he smiled and kissed her on the lips. "_L_, is for the way you look at me. _O_, is you're the only one I see. _V_, is very very extraordinary, _E_, is...something-or-other," he improved, and Mimi giggled at his lack of memory.

"Hey, lovebirds," Benny teased, his own arm wrapped around Alison. "We're sitting over here. First thing we gotta do is get some wood, though."

Forgetting about their earlier promise, the seven of them split ways, Benny taking the axe.

Eventually, all of them joined back together in the middle, some with wood and others with nothing but dead leaves. "Al_right!_ Let's get our chop on and split some firewood!" Collins cried animatedly, trying to get Mark excited. It worked a bit—he chuckled and slapped Collins on the shoulder.

Then they realized someone was missing.

"Mimi?" Roger asked, turning to his left with a smile. He reached out to hug her but ended up almost falling over, hugging air. Then he stopped. "MIMI?" He shot up from his seat and cursed. "Oh, fuck, no. No, no, NO! I can't lose her! NO!" He cupped his hands over his mouth. "_MIMI!_"

"Roger?" came the reply. "Roger, help!"

That was all he needed. He took off into a run, screeching to a stop when he came to her. There was a large brown bear across from Mimi, the two of them circling slowly. Mimi had tears running down her cheeks, a _terrified _expression on her face. Roger felt his chest tighten—both his heart and the place where a bear had mauled his own body.

"Hey, you... you... BITCH! Get the _hell _away from my chick, man!" The animal turned around and growled at Roger, once again his heart constricted. "Hey, bud, um, how about you—"

"HELP!" Alison's voice cried out. "Oh, my God, I found him!"

_Him?_

Fed up with this fucking bear being an asshole, Roger ran around him and picked Mimi up bridal style, running with her in the direction of Alison's screaming voice. "Help me, someone, please!" he dodged trees with expertise—he had to when he was being chased by the bear.

And once again it was happening. The bear was following them, and it did for a while, but then it peeled off. When they reached Alison's weeping form, he put Mimi down and crawled next to her, his chest almost collapsing.

There was Benny, lying on the ground, his body split in _half. _The axe had penetrated his skin just above his waist and was stuck there, now bloodied. His eyes were still wide open, unlike any other of the murdered, and it was one of the most heart wrenching things Roger'd ever seen. The poor guy had just been trying to chop up some wood for a fire... and now _he'd _been chopped up.

Roger allowed himself to shed tears. He held Mimi and Alison in one giant hug, patting Allie's back. He watched as Mimi held Allie's hair back as she threw up and continued to sob. _Women,_ Roger thought. _So supportive of each other._

Sighing once more, he stood up and called the rest of his friends over. It was certain. There was a murderer, and that's all there was to it.

_Benny's gone._

_Chop._

**A/N**: _I'm not even going to say sorry for Bene__**dick.**__ :P_

_I. Am. Going. To. See. RENT. On Broadway. This. Summer._

–_dies– THIS IS TRUE! Thank you to all of you who contributed to the info; MY PARENTS ARE LETTING ME GO! I'm going Thursday August 9__th__. I AM SO EXCITED! Oh, my God, it's like all of my wildest dreams just came true :D_

_I'm in row O of the orchestra... do you know if those are good seats? I've never been to a Broadway show / New York. I'm a n00b XD_

_ANYWAY. Review! _

–_Steph._


	6. Sting

_Ten Little Bohos  
_5. Sting  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__**Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
**__**A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
**__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

"What the _fuck!_" Roger cried, punching a tree fiercely. He felt his insides turn to mush and gradually melt away, his sobs grabbing at the crisp yet warm Florida air, only tying in with those of the women and men around him. "What the _fuck _is going on?"

"Roger, please—"

"Don't 'Roger, please' me! This is retarded! We're sitting fucking _ducks _here! We need to get off of this island. Or, how about this?" he spun to face Alison, who clearly wasn't in any mood to be insulted. "I'm going to go fix your dad's piece-o'-shit intercom!"

Just as Roger spun around to walk toward the building, wiping tears from his eyes, Collins stood directly in front of him. "Roger, you're acting like a child," he scolded, motioning to the scene before them. "You can't always run away from everything that you don't like, Rog."

"_Why does everyone think I do that?_" Roger howled, grabbing his head and looking down.

"Because you do," Collins nudged softly.

Devastated, Roger looked up, his face twisted into torment. "Collins," he started brokenly, but couldn't continue. He collapsed into the fellow man's arms, hugging him hard and trying to resist the urge to cry into his shoulder.

"It's okay, Roger," Collins stroked his friend's back, not able to grasp how he held his emotion in all this time. "Seeing Samantha..." he trailed off, holding Roger an arm's length away and studying him.

"I tried to get your attention," Roger sniffed. "I needed to talk to someone... but you were taking care of her..." he silenced for a moment, wiping his tears from his eyes, inwardly abusing himself. "April," her name made his heart sing and then croak—his hand shot out (a reflex) and grabbed his heart, his body suddenly shaking. "April, she looked _just _like April... pale, and—and—she was... she was all..."

"Let's not think about it." Suddenly Collins was nervous that Roger would break down and he wouldn't have help disposing of Benny. "What are we gonna do with him?" Collins asked.

"Can't we just leave him here?"

"No." Collins cleared some brush away and thought hard. "Mark, can you go get us a few blankets from inside the house, one of the extra rooms?" The pale man nodded and lumbered toward the house. "Thanks," Collins muttered, and then turned back to Roger. "We can't just leave him. If—_when_ we get out of here, the police are gonna need evidence, look for fingerprints, et cetera. We've got to do our best to keep him around."

Roger nodded and approached Mimi, hugging her tight. "I don't believe this is happening," she sobbed into his chest, gripping the back of his shirt like her life depended on it. Suddenly the air was freezing, and Roger was shaking.

"I know, me neither," he agreed, tears coming to his own eyes. He cast a look over to Alison, who was clutching on to Collins and weeping, every so often turning to dry heave—there was nothing left in her stomach to regurgitate.

Joanne was hugging herself by the knees. _No... how can Benny be dead? _She asked herself, rocking back and forth to soothe her aching heart.

Mark came sauntering in, but then he didn't look so calm. "The lock down's initiated," he groaned, trying to get Benny out of his sight. His pale skin was starting to look even paler, his body all of a sudden clammy.

"Fuck," Collins muttered, shaking his head and stamping his foot angrily. "Crap. We should get up in the trees then. Or at least, for now, finish building this fire..."

Inside of him, Roger's emotions were going insane. He suddenly realized that they didn't have any regular sized wood—the axe was still protruding from Benny's abdomen. In his mixed state, he tried to humor himself. "How do you start a fire when there's nothing to burn?" he asked laconically, shaking his head.

Mark's head snapped up and the two of them looked at each other, conversing mentally, reaching out to each other, but then they both looked away.

They traced their way back to the campfire site, Collins carrying Alison with him. They rolled a few logs out for seats, and Collins used his lighter to ignite the fire. In a few minutes, they were all trying to warm themselves by the fire, clutching to their lovers... or to whoever they had.

"Sticks," Mimi shattered the uncomfortable silence. "Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks, one chopped himself in halves, and then there were six," she spat out the line of the poem, disgusted.

"That's just inhumane," Mark shook his head. "I can't believe someone's doing this."

He looked at his friends, studying each of them carefully. Collins didn't do it, he was certain of that. It wasn't Alison. Not Joanne, not himself. They wouldn't kill their partners, Mark wouldn't kill his own. That left—

He sucked in a deep breath. _Mimi and Roger._

"So," Collins sighed. "We need to try to figure this out."

"We do," Joanne murmured in agreement.

"Let's think of the pattern," Mimi suggested. "Is there one?"

"Well, as I said before, it's going girl, boy, girl. And no two partners have been killed yet, correct?"

Nods.

"So, we just lost Benny," he inhaled. "Next person should be a girl who's partner is still alive."

The forest froze, the fire crackled a few times. Suddenly, everyone caught on, and Mimi gasped sharply, clinging onto Roger. Her boyfriend did the same, pulling her close to him. _I can't lose Mimi, _he thought, pressing his face into her hair. Her strawberry shampoo filtered into his nose and he hugged her tighter.

"I don't want to die," she croaked out.

"Not while I'm fucking alive you aren't," Roger promised. He looked out at his group of people. "Do you hear me?" he looked out at his friends. "I am going to guard her with my life. If you even go _near _her, I _swear, _I'm going to kill you with my own two freaking hands."

A few more hours passed uneventfully, the small talk attempted died out. The bohos each picked a tree, or shared one with their partner. In a short time, everyone fell asleep...

_...except the murderer._

They sat up, looking around at their friends, chuckling to themself. Then, they dropped down from the tree they were sleeping in and got to work.

— — — —

"BENNY?"

Alison's eyes flashed open and then the she was face up, looking at the sky. She let out a short cry and rolled over into a ball, her back now aching and her mind's eye showing nothing but Benny's face.

"Shit, Alison!" She vaguely heard Roger's voice, and then leaves were rustling next to her. "Are you okay?" And then she was sitting up, her face pulled into a wiry, rock-hard shoulder. "I'm sorry, Al," he whispered into her hair, shaking his head. "None of this was meant to happen. This was supposed to be a vacation."

"It's my fault!" she wailed, "It's my Dad's fault! It's the guy who built this places' fault! The stupid, fricking... the stupid intercom! Why didn't it fucking work? Roger, none of this makes _sense_... my _husband_... he's..." she turned and dry heaved, Roger still holding her close to him. "This can't be happening."

"But it is, Allie, it is."

Suddenly there was the sound of more leaves rustling, and then Mark was groaning. "Fucking stump..." he muttered, standing up and seeing the couple. "Hey, guys," he acknowledged solemnly. "Think we should head back to the hotel?"

The two of them nodded—Alison more into Roger's chest than toward Mark. Standing the young woman up, Roger started walking her back to the hotel, his eyes darting across the forest. _Someone out here wants to kill us. Someone wants all of us dead._ Frankly, that scared the shit out of him. No matter how much he denied it, he was terrified.

Silently, he weighed out his chances. With the pattern that was going on, Mimi was supposed to go next. He wouldn't allow that. He hoped his threat had been taken seriously. On the other hand, if Mimi remained alive, every finger in the fucking joint would be pointed at him. "Mimi's still alive, Roger's the murderer, he couldn't kill her!" he could picture it in his mind.

_Oh well,_ he figured. _I'd rather have Mimi alive and have to deal with a little bit of hatred. Who knows? Maybe they won't._

They made it to the hotel, Roger basically carrying Alison in his arms, and he was pleased to discover that the lock down had shut itself off dutifully. The two of them hustled into the elevator, both seemingly paranoid, and entered the Meeting Room on the second floor. In a heap, Alison collapsed on the couch, and Roger did the one thing he always did when he was troubled or sad.

He cleaned.

Only few people knew about this. Of course Mark did, hell, they'd lived together _how _long? Mimi was aware, because they were close and Roger told her everything, Maureen knew beause they used to live together back in the day, and Collins did as well, just because he and Collins were best friends.

The first thing he did was scrub the counters, wiping a soapy sponge harshly on the granite. By the time he was done his fingers were raw, but he continued his cleaning journey anyway. He tidied up the eating space, washing some of the dishes, and then moved to the living room, even vacuuming it.

By that time, the room was looking spotless, and nearly out of breath, Roger collapsed on the love seat, his head in his hands.

Suddenly, there was a loud stumbling noise and then Mark stumbled into the room. "Roger, Roger, oh my _God_, Roger, Benny—he's—Benny—his body—it's _gone_. Benny's body is _gone_."

After he entered the room completely, the rest of the Bohos followed him, not one remarking on the cleanliness of the room. The silence was a dreadful one, the only sound that of Alison's painful sobs, her heart being poured out. Finally, someone hushed her, and it was Joanne, gathering the girl into a hug.

"So what do we do now?" Mark asked, throwing his hands in the air. "What the _hell _are we supposed to do now?"

Silence.

"How many times have I asked this fuckin' question?" he rhetorically wondered out loud, and no one dared answer him. It was odd—when he was mad, Mark could become just like Roger. He was actually intimidating. Sure, he didn't have the muscle that Roger had, but he had the agility and the speed.

"His body is _gone_," he repeated to everyone. "It's _gone_. And _anyone _could've taken it during the night. What do we do now, huh? What the hell are we supposed to do? _Somebody answer me!_" he slammed his fist down on the counter and then sat down at one of the chairs, burying his head in his hands and starting to cry.

It wasn't supposed to end like this. His friends weren't supposed to die this way. They were supposed to die slowly, one by one, in the safety of their home, or in a hospital, or maybe even have a miracle or two like Mimi herself did. This couldn't be happening to them. Not them. They didn't deserve it. Their destinies weren't supposed to play out like this.

"I'm going to my room," he announced, and then he stood up and left the Meeting Room.

— — — —

It had been so hard for him to find ash. _So _hard, but finally, he decided on taking one of Roger's matches. He lit a piece of his hair on fire, deciding that it would have to do, and then gathered the ash in his hand, running it through his fingers softly.

He'd touched Samantha's body. He was a Jew. He studied this story to become a Bar Mitzvah, it had become a part of him, no matter how much or little of a Jew he was. _This needs to be done_, he told himself calmly.

The story of the Red Heifer was one he didn't fully remember all that well—but it told him that back in the day, whenever Jewish people touched a deal animal or human, they would have to perform this ritual, taking some ash of the dead animal or person and then having someone throw it at them as they prayed.

So what he did was he took one of the fans and placed the ash in the fan, allowing it to blow over his body, therefore "cleansing" him, or ridding him of the evil of the dead spirit. "Well..." he exhaled, "I don't really know what to do right about now... but I'd like to say... uh, sorry for touching her body, and I really loved her, so I wanted to..."

Sighing heavily, he recited some Hebrew phrases he remembered, most of them being mazel tov (good luck), just because that was the only thing he could fully recall. Even though it had no relation to what was going on, he figured it was Hebrew, so it might work... right?

He had always been more of a Christian boy.

"Listen," he sighed, standing up and resting his head on the fan, allowing the cool air to blow on his face. "God. I know, I'm half-Jew, half-Christian, or Catholic, or whatever. I just want to get this clear. I believe in you, okay? I believe that you are the supreme ruler, yada yada yada, I'm sure you hear this all the time..."

_Mark_, a voice told him, and then he was hit with a pang of striking pain—it was Samantha's voice, _you're rambling. And it sounds like you're talking to yourself._

"Right, sorry, Sammy." He inhaled sharply. "Um, yeah. I just want to say..."

Then he broke down.

Tears fell from his eyes and into the fan, lightly spraying them back into his face. "Man, I'm scared," he admitted, his voice cracking and going up an octave. "I'm _so _scared, you have no idea... I'm terrified. I don't want to die, yeah, but I don't want to let _them _die." He motioned blindly to the door, indicating his friends.

"I thought I would have a while to prepare, you know? Like from the day Collins was pronounced HIV positive I've been preparing, even more after Roger was and then Mimi almost died... I've noticed how real it is, you know? Angel hit home, and that was painful for us all, and it just gave us a huge reality check... like it was really happening, it had already started. But now it's happening and... jeez... I don't know..."

_That's right, _Sam told him again, _you don't know. You'll never know._

Then there was a silence in which Mark wiped his tears. And then:

_But I do know._

— — — —

"We should go back to our rooms," Joanne suggested softly, motioning to the sleeping Alison in her arms. "Mark's probably in his, and I think we all need to clear our minds."

For a moment, everyone was quiet, but then there were various forms of agreement. Collins walked over to Alison and carried her into her bedroom, deciding to stay in there with her. Joanne joined them.

Collins looked at Joanne nervously and wiped his face with his large hand. "This is getting scary, Jo," he shook his head and looked at Alison, who was sleeping on the bed. He remembered all the times that she'd gotten wasted, or he'd seen her sleep—she was always sprawled out completely. Not today—today she was in a tight ball, holding herself together.

The two of them could relate completely.

"Okay. We need to figure this out. Who?" Joanne asked, pacing back and forth. "We need to talk to Mimi. She's the only one left who knows the poem. She must have learned the whole thing, at least the poem itself, before she dropped out, no? See if we can jog her memory." Then, she walked to the computer desk that every one of the hotel rooms had. She took a piece of lined paper.

She walked back over to Collins and started scribbling the lines of the poem that they'd already been killed by. "Chop was the last one... right? We never figured that out." She scratched the top of her head. "Dammit, they're fucking smart. Clever bastard."

Suddenly, there was a loud screech. "FUCK!"

Roger.

— — — —

Mark tore down the halls at the speed of Kid Flash, almost tripping and falling on his face numerous times. He caught up with Collins and Joanne, both of whom were running in the same direction as he. They'd heard him scream too. Roger didn't scream on a whim. Maybe they were just paranoid.

Or maybe Roger was the next to go.

Mark sucked in a deep breath. _Don't think about it._

When the three of them reached the door to his and Mimi's room, it was locked. They pounded on it mercilessly. "Roger, open up! Roger, open the door, come on! Open up!" Mark closed his eyes and threw himself at the door, praying that his best friend was alive, praying that the killer wasn't in there, praying that Mimi wasn't dead—

He went flying into the room, Roger managing to catch him and bring him back to his feet. Oops. "What happened? We heard you scream," he breathed.

The clearly angry rocker stuffed his hands in his pockets. "My AZT is gone."

A collective gasp was shared by the three of them. "_Again?_" Collins asked, suddenly enraged. "Shit!"

"Did you look _everywhere?_" Joanne asked.

"Of _course _I looked fucking _everywhere!_" The indirect insult didn't catch Joanne off-guard, she simply walked over to Mimi and helped her search. "Someone wants me dead, it's obvious. Nobody else who's dead is HIV positive. The subscription of Angel's is gone, mine's still AWOL."

"It's okay, Roger, I'll share with you, and I'm sure Collins will too—"

"I'm not taking yours!" he cried, incredulous. "I am _not _killing you guys by taking your subscriptions. No. No way. That's not possible," he shook his head over and over. "No. Sorry. I'm _not _taking your AZT, end of story. This conversation is over." He walked to the kitchen and went rifling through the cabinets.

By this time, Alison had joined them. "Is everything okay in here? I heard screaming."

"Yeah, we're okay," Joanne told her. "Roger's AZT is gone again."

"Again?"

"Again."

Sighing, Mimi tried to talk to her boyfriend. "Roger—"

"No, Mimi, I _told _you!"

"Rog—"

"NO!"

"Babe—"

Furious, Roger spun around and started stalking toward her, ready to grab her by the shoulders and yell at her again, but Collins leapt in between the two of them, soon to be joined by Mark. Mark placed himself in front of Mimi, protecting her. Collins grabbed Roger by the shoulder. "Man, _listen _to her! That's your fucking problem! You don't _listen!_"

Sucking in a deep breath, he nodded. "Sorry, Mimi. What did you want to say?" Then he noticed the tears. "Mimi, I'm sorry, really, I didn't mean to—I'm really sorry, really. I didn't want to... I'm just..."

She shook her head. "Roger, you know just as well as I do that we're not going to be alive much longer."

This confused Roger. "What do you mean—"

"I _mean_," she walked toward him and took his hand, Mark and Collins still close and ready to spring. "That this murderer wants us _dead_. And you know, I'm pretty sure they won't stop until we _are_. None of us are going to make it out of here. _You _know that, _I _know that. As long as we don't know who they are—"

"_WAIT!_"

Sam's voice struck Mark suddenly. She'd said that she known who had done it. Of course she did. She didn't commit suicide—someone had _killed _her. She had seen them approach her. "Wait, wait, wait! Okay, so earlier, I was doing this ritual, you know," he looked at Roger, hoping he'd catch on, "The Red Heifer thing, because I touched a dead body?"

Slowly understanding, Roger nodded. This fueled Mark. "Yeah, this thing—and then Sam, she was talking to me."

Odd glances.

"Don't look at me like that, really. No, she was. She was telling me I was rambling, and that I should just get to the point," he chuckled in spite of himself and a few tears slipped down his cheeks, a sentimental smile on his face.

Collins chuckled a bit and smiled softly. "Sounds like Mantha to me," he nodded.

"Yeah. And she said—her voice—it said that she knew who killed her," Mark continued. "Because, you know, she didn't really kill herself, someone just made it look like it, so she _must _have seen the murderer coming towards her, she _must've_, she _had to've_, and maybe she can tell me, you know? That's what I was thinking."

It took a moment, but then everyone warmed up to the idea, urging Mark to try to talk to Samantha, and all the while, the others trying to contact their dead lovers/friends.

_Come on, Sammy, please, tell me who did it. Tell me—please!_

_Fine, Marky, _there was her voice again—or was it Maureen's? It sounded almost like a mixture of the two. _It was—_

They stopped.

_It was what? _Mark demanded, gritting his teeth and almost biting through his lip. _It was who? Who?_

_It was—_they stopped again. Why was she stopping? _Marky, you just can't hear us, baby! _Maureen and Sammy's voices giggled. _You won't let us hear you! You have to open your heart and your mind, Mark, if you want to fully understand who it is and what they're doing! _They were giggling again.

Without noticing, Mark growled angrily and hit his head against the nearest table to them. "They're giving me some bullshit story about me not opening my mind wide enough to fully understand, or some shit like that. Bull_shit!_"

"You know what? I think we're getting claustrophobic," Collins suggested calmly, drawing Mark's head away from the corner of the table. "Why don't we just take a breather... how about this. Let's go outside, maybe look for Benny's body, okay? That'll be safe. Safe, calm, and it'll be fresh air..."

And so they went outside.

The bright sun was intimidating to Mark. He hated being outside in the blatant sunlight. There were so many things to go wrong—sunburns, skin cancer, the list continued. He wished he had some SPF 45 with him.

On the other hand, Mimi was basking. Being from Mexico, her skin handled the sun well, and she loved the feeling of being warmed by the almighty ball of fire.

"Okay, let's split up, two groups of three. Hmm... let's see." Collins studied the five people before him. He figured that if Mimi was going to be targeted, the two strongest should be with her, which would be himself and Roger. "Mark, can you go with Allie and Jo?" he asked, and the albino nodded, shading himself from the sun. "Mimi, Roger—come with me."

They walked for a short time, searching almost the entire forest surrounding the hotel.

And then there was a scream. "BEES!"

_Bees. _"Mark's allergic to bees," Roger blurted, his mind suddenly jerking into overdrive.

"_BEES!_"

"Alison is too!" Mimi squeaked.

"_Oh, my God, BEES!_"

Again it pierced the air, making Mimi almost leap out of her skin. "Oh, my God, that was Joanne! What if Mark's dead, and Joanne is yelling? Or what if—what if—Joanne, oh, my God!" And she booked it, leaving Collins and Roger in the dust. The two men followed her, and Roger eventually passed her, bursting into the opening where he found the other three of their friends.

But it wasn't Joanne on the ground, unmoving, with a small bee flying around her face. And it wasn't Mark, either, it was Alison, her porcelain skin looking yellowish orange in the vibrant sunlight. "_OH, MY GOD, ALLIE!_" Mimi wailed, falling to her knees and crawling over to her friend. "Bees! She's allergic to bee stings! Oh, my God, she's dead! She's fatally allergic! Oh, my God... she's dead, she's dead!"

Joanne soon fell next to her, the two sobbing over their lost friend. "Oh, my God," Mark breathed, and he hadn't moved from his place. "Oh, shit." He scuttled closer to Collins and Roger, looking at them. "I didn't know Alison was allergic to bees too," he choked out. "That—that could've been—that could've been me."

"Mark!" Roger walked forward and slapped his friend. "Why didn't you give her one of your bee pill things?!"

"I don't have them. They're at the hotel," Mark gasped, still out of breath from watching his own possible death unfold before him. "She isn't wearing one either."

"Wait," Collins, just like some sort of detective, went to his knees and pulled Alison's hand out of her pocket. Barely clasped in her hand was a small orange pill. "She didn't have enough time to take it."

"She takes the same kind as me, too," Mark exhaled. "No—wait. Those _are _mine. She was taking my—she took my—my medication!"

Mimi, still on her knees, looked up. "She—she asked me if—if she could take s-some of yours, b-because she f-forgot hers. I-I figured you'd be okay with it."

"No, it's fine—I just..." _can't believe that she's dead because she couldn't get hold of the pill fast enough. _That's not a way you want to go, Mark decided. Because of a bee sting? Hardly. Some people, like Roger, would want to go out kicking and screaming, or in a burning flame. Others would be okay with dying that way.

Alison was not one of them.

Once again feeling like the undertaker, Collins stopped his tears best he could and picked up Allie's limp body, feeling her petite form against him.

_Sting._

**A/N:** Alison. :(

A lot of people thought Mark was going to die here, and I almost made him die here, just because he reminds me SOOO much of the little boy from My Girl :) But I refrained.

Okay. So about the Red Heifer thing. I didn't remember all about it, but I made it so Mark didn't, either, so please don't shit on me about getting the story wrong or whatever.

If anyone can guess who's going to die in the "Red Herring" chapter of this story, I'll make you an OC (only from memory or something) in the chapter after that :) Just give me your name with your guess.

"You make your own luck in this crazy mixed-up world." Sorry, random Full House quote.

As of now, I've put "Show Stoppers" and "Tango: Competition" on hiatus. Not for long, just for now.

OH, and I've started a forum! It's on ProBoards. Join the community, it's all about RENT!

http// xsteponmex . proboards 81 . com

take away the spaces, and SHINGGGGG, there it is. I'm still kinda trying to figure the whole thing out, but join, please!

I realize this is shorter. I'm sorry. I know you guys wanted it posted, I know it's been a long time. Sorry. Life's sucking, shit of various varieties has just hit the fan and I basically just gave up.

One last thing: I think I'm gonna move this up to an M rating, just because of the swearing... do you think it's necessary, or should I keep it as "T" and write a warning in the summary?

REVIEW!

–Steph.


	7. Chancery

_Ten Little Bohos  
_6. Chancery  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__**Five little Bohos going in for law,  
**__**One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
**__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

It was odd how compassion and togetherness could instantly warp into hatred and bloodlust, Mark decided now as he looked at Roger's face. "It's him!" he shouted once again, trying to get the attention of his friends. They'd all gathered in the Meeting Room and Collins had placed Alison in the Dead Room. "It's him, can't you see? It was _him!_ He didn't want Mimi dead, so—so he—"

"Mark," Collins shook his head from his place on the couch. "Man, that wasn't _anybody's _fault. Can you seriously, honestly give me a rational explanation as to how Roger could've tamed a bee to follow redheaded girls around and sting them? Roger was with _me_, on the _other side _of the _forest_."

"Mimi's _alive! _How do you explain _that?_ How do you explain our pattern going frickin' MIA? It's right in front of you, why can't you see? _Why can't you see?_" he was jumping up and down wildly again. "All the lights are on," he stalked over to Collins and motioned grandly to him, but then knocked on his skull. "But nobody's home!"

"_Everyone's home!_" Collins roared, tearing Mark's hand off of his head. "Mark, you're not being _sensible!_ It's not like Roger _possessed _the bee and made it sting her! Honestly, Mark. Think about what you're saying." He pushed Mark back to his seat and then started pacing, running his hands over the top of his beanie.

"This means something," Mimi announced, still shaking a bit. "This means something. I didn't die, I was _supposed _to die, I _should've _died—"

"Mimi—"

She turned around and slapped his hand off of her, jumping up and beginning to pace. "No, don't 'Mimi!' me!" she put a hand to her forehead, wiping her tears away feverishly. "This means something! This is a sign!" She turned around to face him again, challenging him with a question. "Why didn't I die? Why did the murderer change plans—"

Roger tried to cut her off, but she continued to talk. He tried to change her idea. "—it wasn't you who should've died—"

"—I don't understand why _I _wasn't the one to go—"

"—stop thinking like that—"

"ROGER!" Quickly she whipped around, hitting him in the face with her hair. "Roger, I can't take this anymore. I can't even _talk _without you—without you interrupting me, and—it's just making me _crazy! _Let me _talk_, would you?"

Roger shut his mouth and sat down.

"_Thank _you!" She sighed deeply. "Anyway. This means something. I don't know what it means, but it—"

"It _means_," Mark stepped up from the barstool he was on and walked in front of Mimi, looking out at all of his friends, "That the murderer is among us right now as we speak."

Silence. The last person they could picture saying this was Mark, the one who'd denied his friends the entire time. "Why do you say that, Mark?" Collins asked, putting his beanie back on his head and walking toward him. "Why the change of heart?"

"Think about it. No—wait. Close your eyes."

Wearily, everyone obeyed.

"Okay, picture this." He walked back and forth, his hands behind his back. "You're a murderer. All of your friends are locked on an island with no communication out of it, and you plot on killing each of them. You get Maureen, and then you get Angel, and then you get—" he gulped, "—Samantha, and then Benny. They're starting to figure out your pattern..."

He sat down on the couch. "Open your eyes."

Everyone's eyes shot open and suddenly the room was chilly. "I get it," Joanne nodded slowly. "We're figuring out their pattern, so that means..."

"...that they're angry?" Roger finished, confused, knitting his eyebrows together.

"Yeah," Collins agreed, getting on the understanding train. "I get it. They're pissed that we're figuring out the pattern, so they tried to screw us over... right?"

"Right," Mark said.

"Okay..." Mimi grasped this idea. "But how did they get the bee to sting Alison?"

"Who knows?" Mark asked. "Maybe they were trying to get me," he shrugged, "and they didn't know Alison was allergic to bees. Or maybe they did go for Alison, or maybe it wasn't even supposed to happen that way." He grinned at his next idea. "Maybe none of us were supposed to get stung by a bee! Then we'd completely screw up their patttern—"

"Wait." Mimi put her hand to make Mark stop talking. She shut her eyes and searched through her brain, going back to eleventh grade, back to when they studied this poem. Suddenly, it was there, open to grasp, right behind her eyes. "What the hell _was _it?!" she cried, frustrated. "Chopped himself up... then there were six..."

She stood up and paced a hole through the floor. "Ten little Indian boys went out to dine, one choked his little self and then there were nine," she recited, looking out the window in front of her.

"Maureen," Joanne whispered under her breath.

"Ten little Indian boys stayed up real late, one overslept himself, and then there were eight."

"Angel," Collins sung quietly, "indeed." _An Angel of the first degree_.

She sat down and put her head between her legs, closing her eyes and putting her hands over her ears, trying to think. Then her head shot up. "Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon, one said he'd stay there and then there were seven."

"Samantha," Mark choked out.

"Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks," her voice was louder now, starting to get frantic, "one chopped himself in halves, and then there were six." The room was silent. "Benny," Mimi finally whispered.

"Six little Indian boys," Joanne put in, catching on from the beginning. "What rhymes with five? Dive? Live?"

"NO!" Mimi jumped up, clinging to Joanne. "Six little Indian boys playing with a hive," she squeaked, her voice climbing octave after octave, "a—a bumblebee stung—stung one, and then there were—" her voice dropped off, startled into silence.

"Five," Roger breathed.

The poem becoming true was almost a finalizing death statement to the Bohos, in a way. It meant, for sure, that one of their friends was watching them, a purpose had been served in the poem.

"I'm going to my room," Mimi announced, and then she bolted down the hall.

"That sounds good," Mark nodded. "How about we just go to our rooms, hang out for a while, get our minds straight—and then we'll meet in here whenever we're ready and—"

"We'll get drunk," Collins finished.

— — — —

Truth be told, deep down inside, Roger had thought it was Alison all along.

He had, it was the truth. He figured it was so easy for her to do it all—just get her precious little Daddykins to manipulate them. But now that she was dead, he was having second thoughts. Not only second thoughts but third thoughts and fourth thoughts and fifth thoughts. He felt guilty to the extreme.

He heard Mimi's AZT beeper go off and he walked over to give her one, but he discovered that she was asleep. She thought that he was taking some of hers when he really wasn't—he _wasn't _going to take her medicine, end of story. Sighing, he bent down and gave her a kiss, and then walked over to the printer and pulled out a piece of paper.

_Meems,_

_I went to go for a walk... or something. Just really needed to clear my head. Take your AZT, your beeper went off and I already took mine. I'll be back soon._

_Love you, Mimi,_

_Roger_

Sighing to himself softly, he closed the door to their bedroom and ran a hand through his hair. _I need to get this cut,_ he thought, fingering his split ends, _if we get out of here._

"If?" he gasped to himself, stopping in his tracks. "If?" he repeated it stupidly. "_When_," he corrected. "When, when, when, when." _Get that in your skull_.

When he finally was no longer subconsciously walking, he found that he'd brought himself to the Dead Room, and suddenly he was covered in goosebumps. He could feel the air nipping at his skin. "Shit," he muttered, scrubbing his face. "Shit, this blows." And it did blow. One thing he was right about.

"Now what do I do?" he wondered aloud, the fact that he talked to himself a lot lately dawning upon him after saying this. "Why did I bring myself here? You stupid masochist, Roger. You want to do this to yourself."

Now he was just sounding schizo, so he shut his mouth and continued to question himself, only this time mentally. There was a moment where he turned around to leave, but some sort of energy pulled him back to the door. So, in spite of himself, he went with it and opened the door, holding his breath as if he were driving past a graveyard in a car.

The air in the room smelled of rotting corpses, but that was nothing compared to the eerie silence that was settled over the house at that exact moment. Nothing moved. The door squeaked, but when the room was revealed to Roger, he didn't put his foot down. He stood there and stared before everything snapped into place and his foot hit the creaky hardwood.

This was where he broke down into hysterics.

His sobs were muffled by his hands as he collapsed in a loveseat at the opposite side of the dead bodies, which were all seated around him.

Maureen was sitting by herself in a chair, her head lolled to the side like it usually was when she slept upright. Her curls fell around her face and covered her left eye, her right one actually in sight but closed. It almost made Roger throw up—he'd never see her beautiful eyes again, never speak to his best female friend.

Next to her in a loveseat were Benny and Alison, Alison's eyes closed but Benny's wide open. A curtain had been wrapped around his gaping body, and his arm was around Allie's shoulder. Her head was resting on his shoulder, her straight red hair adorned with a black barrette, something that Collins had obviously taken time to put in.

The look that he had given Angel was the most natural. Her knees were bent and she was in a chair of her own as well, her head resting in her arms and her feet dangling off of the end of the chair a little bit. Her favorite book, _And Then There Were None_, was on the side of her thigh, and she looked like she'd fallen asleep.

Samantha was laid full-out on the couch, one knee bent and against the back of the couch, the other laid out straight. Her head was against the armrest, and once again she looked lost in dreams, definitely not lifeless.

When his tears subsided, he stared at each of his friends. Then, knowing what he had to do, he stood up and walked over to Maureen, his first loss.

"I'm sorry this had to happen, Mo," he choked and pushed his hair out of his face, cupping hers with his hands. Her skin was so cold that it almost made him let go out of shock, but he continued to hold it, speaking to her. "You were always there for me, through April, through everything... I love you, girl." He wrapped his arms around her and hugged.

Next was Angel—he said a few words and then hugged the drag queen tight, once again feeling the chilliness and the lifelessness of the usual bubbling Angel. Now he was clammy and afraid, just because the walls seemed to be closing in and he couldn't deal with it anymore. But he needed to finish.

He wrapped his arms awkwardly around Samantha—it was difficult to hug her normally—and stroked her hair, telling her the long story of Mark's planned proposal, and how he wanted to have lots of kids with her, and how they would all be beautiful because how pretty she was, and they'd all probably have glasses like his own family.

After he'd finished his story to Samantha, he walked over to Benny, sighing deeply and then closing his eyes. "I'm so sorry that... I'm..." he shook his head. "We grew apart, after you sold out and... I don't know about Mimi... but, man, we were such good friends. When you and Mark came back from Brown... and he was like, 'Hey, this is Benny, he's cool, he's living with us,' I was kind of skeptical... but man, you're hilarious."

Now he was laughing, thinking of all the stupid shit Benny had done. Coke and Mentos? He'd basically invented that. He did all kinds of crazy tricks. The man was funnier than everyone thought, and he reminisced on these good times, slapping his knee and telling old jokes...

...with a dead body.

He realized this and suddenly was grim, standing up and carefully hugging Benny. He moved next to Alison, taking her cold hand in his.

"Allie," he started, looking at her closed eyes. "I'm sorry that I thought it was you. I really... I just... I really was... I don't freakin' know anymore, you know?" he sighed. "I should've helped you. Somehow. I'm just so preoccupied with Mimi, I have to keep her alive... I need her with me. I couldn't live if she died, you know?"

Then he grit his teeth, looking out at the big picture window on the other side of the room, hating the thought that came to him next. "The murderer's laughing. Sure, we'll laugh, but we're dancing on our freaking grave. Everything's serious, and the murderer thinks this is a freaking game. A sick, twisted game."

Across the room, a curtain rippled in the wind, and that was it—Roger couldn't take it. He stood up and booked it out of the room, making one last promise. "Your murderer won't make it out alive!"

— — — —

"ALLLLLLCOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOL!"

The one word was drawn out to a very loud and off-key extent by none other than Tom Collins, who presented the multiple bottles of it to each of the remaining Bohos. As always, he kept the Stoli for himself, grinning wickedly as he bit the cork off of the bottle and spat it out, hurriedly stuffing the top of it between his lips.

"Jeez-us," muttered a somehow already drunk Mark, "you're a facking annie-mall." He pronounced the words out completely and spoke drunkenly, holding a joint in one hand and a thrice emptied cup filled with vodka. Drugs and alcohol wasn't going to add up to a good Mark Cohen in the morning was all Collins could think.

But at least they were having fun. Each one of them had lost someone dear to them, their group of friends was now destroyed. But, hey, if there were alcohol and drugs, there was fun, no matter what the situation. Drink your problems away. That had been Maureen's life motto, and Collins' was smoke your problems away.

Heh, Mark was going for both on this particular night.

Collins noticed that Roger was looking kind of flushed, the way he did when he didn't take his medicine for a long time, so when Mimi's AZT beeper went off, he supervised as Roger stared at it and looked for a place to dispose of it. However, when he saw Collins' eyes on him, his own widened and he swallowed the pill dry.

Now Mark had his arms spread wide open and was standing on the coffee table, where he finally jumped and cried, "THE PHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANTOM OF THE OPERA IS THERE—" _thump. _He did a belly flop on the hardwood floors and _oof_ed, and Joanne, probably the second worst alcohol holder in the group, laughed hysterically, slapping her knee and falling off other the chair she was on.

"Markamagoo, you're a crayzee monkey," she scolded, her eyelids closing but then opening with a jolt.

Hours later, if anything, they were a little more sober, now enjoying the night more. Well, everyone but Mark. He was still belting out show tunes at the top of his lungs and trying to fly off of various objects in the room, which was proving useless with each new bruise he obtained by doing so.

"You know," Joanne chuckled, taking a drink of her margarita, "the Dead Room, it's almost like... like they're a panel of judges, if you will."

Everyone groaned at the comparison she was making. Of _course _it had to do with law.

"No, no, seriously. Like, they're the only ones who can honestly know who's doing this to us, you know? They're like... they're almost like the Chancery of this situation. They're the ones who can determine who's done it, because they, in most cases, watched their murderer come toward them, you know?"

Mimi's eyes flickered in recollection, but nobody noticed as she put her head down on the table and scanned through her brain, trying to put her finger on why those words had rung such a vibrant bell in her head.

"Wait." Mimi stopped the people around her, but couldn't grasp what was in her mind, so decided not to worry them. "Never mind."

And the party continued.

— — — —

He missed her. That was the bottom line. How could he possibly live without her? A Collins without his Angel was a sign of the apocalypse, or at least the apocalyptic world that was becoming of his own and that of his friends.

Rubbing a hand across his face, Collins inhaled and prepared himself for what he was about to see. His Angel, looking just asleep as she always did, peaceful, tranquil, but really dead. Not in his heart, oh no, but in the physical sense, yes, Angel Dumott Schunard was dead. That final word had finally become of Angel.

But that didn't change the facts of the situation—he needed to see her. He had to. His significant other was dead, sure, but he still needed her. He needed to see her face, kiss her one last time. And that's exactly what he did; gathered all his strength and decided that he was going to venture into the Dead Room.

The timing was a difficult decision. Would he go during the day? No, someone would find him. The night? No, he'd more than likely be killed in the darkness. So he decided finally on early in the morning, Angel's favorite time of the day because of the beautiful colors of the sunrise and dawn.

He and Angel had had many arguments concerning the sunrise and sunset. Collins would always say that sunset was better—the earth could finally rest after the hustle and the bustle of the day. But Angel always loved the sunrise, simply because everything was getting going again, and it was a new day.

He sat there and he spoke to her, told her of what had happened, and eventually he picked up her book and started to read it. His eyes widened as he did so, realizing what was so similar about his situation and this... this book.

He dropped the book and started running.

— — — —

The next morning, Mark was hung over.

Roger was not.

"Maaaaaark!" he shouted, running into Mark's bedroom and jumping on his bed. "Oh, c'mon, Marky, don't you want to sing us some show tunes? Oh, c'mon, Mark—sing us something! 'Good morning Baaaaaaltimore! Every day's like an ooooooooooopen door! Every night is fantasy, every sound's like a symph—w_oah!_" he shouted as he fell off the bed.

Everyone was in high spirits that morning, as everyone had seemed to survive the night. And as they all walked into the Meeting Room, wordlessly they exchanged hugs, so very happy to see each other.

Until Roger noticed someone was gone

Panic rose in his throat like a fucking rocket and adrenalin threw his body out the front door and into the hallway as he skidded and changed directions. "FUCK!" he shouted, sobs already wracking his body. "Oh, my fucking God, no, this can't, it—NO!"

He checked every room on the floor, his friends hot on his heels. "What? What is it, Roger? What?"

And yet he didn't respond, for his throat had closed up in a furious horror. Then something struck him._ A Collins can't be without his Angel..._

"The Dead Room!" he flew up the stairs, not wanting to wait for the elevator, and once he reached the fifth floor, he stopped and fell to the floor, crying and slamming his fists on the ground. "I'm too fucking late," he croaked out, clutching his heart and rolling on his back, trying to make the pain go away.

The friends stopped and then realized who had been missing.

Mark's heart stopped beating for a moment, and then he too was on the ground, kneeling with his hands holding his torso up. _Enter Tom Collins, computer genius, teacher, vagabond anarchist who ran naked through the Parthenon._

_Chancery._

**A/N:** I don't like to kill Collins :( He's my third fave... makes me sad. –cries–

So how many thousand of you thought that Joanne was gonna die? Well, originally, it was supposed to be her... but then things changed.

I saw RENT on August 9th! It was AMAZING!!!! There are no words to describe it, honestly—when I saw Adam walk on that stage in the beginning... I got this feeling that I've never gotten before and still have. It's just... oh, God, guys, you have to see it sometime, even if you live in freaking Calif. You need to go to Broadway and see RENT... it's just... the best thing that will ever happen to you.

It gave me a newfound respect and liking to Angel, and I think Justin Johnson, who played her, was FANTASTIC and almost as good as Wilson –dodges angry screams from WILSONheads (XD)– he added in some hilarious stuff (Mocking happiness after the Bag Lady shouts at Mark: "New York City, yay, oh my god –leg kick–... times are shitty, heh, but I'm pretty sure they can't get worse..." it was hilarious :)

But more than that, it almost showed me the darker side to RENT, you know? Like, maybe not so much darker, but the... realer. The stage was like a loft, the way they worked it was fantastic. I'm having trouble writing Cuffed because I just don't have it in me, you know?

Maybe that's because I'm very sad that I won't be able to see Adam and Anthony again –is saddened– and I didn't stagedoor and it makes me really, really sad. :(

And I killed off Collins. Now I'm depressed.

Anyway. REVIEW!

–Steph.

(Note the changed username XD, I needed a fresh new start for my life, so I started by changing to **Pascal Rascal. **If any of you have any direct links to me, make sure you update them! I'm no longer x Step On Me x, I'm Pascal Rascal XD)


	8. Swallow

_Ten Little Bohos  
_7. Swallow  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__**Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
**__**A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
**__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

Collins' body made him look as if he had tripped over the threshold and had been killed there from the floor, yet that could only be assumed. The front of his face showed shock—his eyes were wide open and his hands were sprawled out in front of him. Just by the looks of it, Collins could've easily been in a movie where the screen was paused.

But everyone around him was moving.

"How did he die?" Mimi demanded, her voice shaking with every syllable she spoke. "How the fuck did he die?"

Solemn and not acting like he was hung over, Mark shook his head. "I don't—"

"Gah!" followed up by a squeaking noise came from Roger, after he'd turned Collins' body over, to reveal something too gory for his eyes that early. There was a hole about one inch in diameter all the way through Collins' stomach, a hole that looked oddly enough like a... bullet hole?

"That's not fucking fair," he moaned. "They have a _gun?_"

"How could they have shot it, and none of us woken up!" Mark shouted, running a hand through his hair frustratedly, "Jesus, why does none of this add the fuck up? This makes absolutely no sense! We would have woken up—unless..." Something ignited in his mind, and his eyes lit up. "Unless they dragged him out into the night and then brought him back in—or maybe—"

"Who's going to move him?" Joanne asked in a scratchy voice, burying her head into Mark's shoulder, unable to look at the obscene sight before her.

"That's right," Mark said brokenly, nodding slowly. "He always did it." Sighing, he looked at his friends, and was about to comment, before Roger did.

"Shit, guys, there's only four of us fucking left. Out of fucking ten, there's _four _of us left."

This shocked Mimi, and she had to confirm it. "No way!" she shook her head. "There's me, Roger, Joanne, you, and—" she stopped, desperately searching for someone. Then she fell silent and cried into Roger's shoulder, shaking her head. How had six people been so uselessly shaved off of their group?

"I—" Roger stopped mid sentence, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and then continued, trying to resist the urge to get sick. Collins. Collins was _dead. _He couldn't grasp that at the moment. "I'll... I'll take him into the... the room."

The four of them walked into the room, Roger now becoming smeared with Collins' blood.

Mimi screamed.

"What?"

"BENNY'S IN HERE!"

"You didn't know that?"

Everybody's heads whipped around to glare at Roger. "What do you mean, 'We didn't know that'?" Mark challenged, advancing on Roger. "You _knew?_"

"Well," Roger said hastily, trying to rack his brain for reasons why this didn't strike him the other day when he was in the room, "I was in here the other day, I just needed—I needed to clear my mind, and I guess it never hit me that Benny had been gone. But—wait, how did he—how—what the hell?"

He quickly put Collins on the last vacant chair and then sat on the floor, wiping his hands on the area rug to get the blood off. Then, he massaged his temples with his forefingers and kicked Mark until he shut up and stopped babbling. He tried to remember every single memory from that few hours he was there.

He focused his mind's eye on Maureen, the first person he'd visited, and then Angel, with her book covering her—

_Wait._

His eyes shot open and he jumped to his feet, quickly spinning around until he could catch sight of Angel, whose arms were in the same position, but her fingers were closed and there was no book in her grasp. "_Shit_," Roger muttered under his breath and then walked over to Angel, checking around the drag queen, searching everywhere on all of the furniture.

"There was a book! Angel had a book the last time I was in here!" he shouted, trying to get his friends to believe him, "I'm serious! Last time I was here—there was a book—_One and None_—or... or... _Once Upon a—_no... what the hell was it _called?_ I—she was reading a book, it looked like she'd falling asleep reading a—_WHY DON'T YOU BELIEVE ME?_" he asked.

There was a long silence, Roger's last scream still ringing off the walls. And then—_beep beep beep_.

"Fuck," Mimi muttered, and then pulled out her bottle of AZT. Mark narrowed his eyes at Roger, and he looked down.

"Mimi, can I have a—"

"No," she said shortly, not meeting his gaze. "You were taking them anyway, were you, Roger? You were killing yourself. Just so you know, I'm not a _poor little girl_, I can live without taking my AZT once in a while. You don't have to play the hero all the time, _Roger_. And you know what? I think you're a fucking murderer, that's what I fucking think. You're being so ignorant, even if you _aren't _killing us—so you know what? I'm done."

And with that, she stuffed her AZT back into her pocket, and then left.

Roger wasted no time wiping his tears away and then fleeing as well.

This left Mark and Joanne to stare at each other. "Um—" they both said at the same time, and then cast their eyes down. "Yeah," they said in unison.

"Roger—"

"I don't think it was Roger," Joanne cut him off. "Did you see the look on his face? Roger can't deal with death."

Mark narrowed his eyes. "You haven't known him as long as I have."

"What does _that _mean? Mark, I'm not stupid enough to think that Roger is—"

"Listen here, _Jo_," Mark spat, "I've known my whole life, so why don't you back the fuck off?"

There was silence, and when Mark looked up at Joanne, she was crying, and just like that, she turned and stalked off.

"Yeah—why don't we all just go to our rooms?" he shouted to the emptiness, and then, head hung low, feeling like dirt, he turned and went as well.

— — — —

Mimi wasn't sure why she was in the Meeting Room at that time, really. They'd just found Collins dead, and all, she wanted was to be alone—but oddly, she'd brought herself to the place where everyone was welcome. She hoped that nobody would come upon her... she hoped they'd all followed Mark's orders and gone to their rooms.

She really didn't know who to blame anymore. She was just so emotionally drained and upset that she wasn't sure of much. At first, she thought Mark, and then Benny, and now she didn't know. How _could _she know? This person was obviously very skillful, and obviously very heartless as well.

She sat on the counter and closed her eyes, muttering a silent prayer to every God she could think of—Santa Maria, Jesus, Buddha, God himself, Zeus, Aphordite, Andromeda, Apollo, Ra—and then she jumped off the counter, and on the way down, slipped on the floor in her slippers, prompting her body to follow on the track down to the ground.

_Smack_.

Since she was already on edge, she screamed in surprise and pain as well. Either way, it was a loud scream that could have scared anyone in the hotel at the time, regardless of where they were... and that's exactly what happened.

The loud screech punctured Roger's eardrums, he was sure of it, but horror punctured his heart. In an instant he was out in the hall, greeted by Joanne and Mark, both on their way to the source of the scream as well. This only made him quicken his pace, and together they ran down the antechamber, finally making it to the Meeting Room. It was eerily silent inside.

The moment they walked in, Joanne screamed and Mark almost fainted. Roger's throat closed up and he ran to her, sprawled on the floor, looking limp. "Oh, please, no," he muttered, unable to force anything else out. He pulled her into his arms and sobbed. "No, no, you can't be fucking dead! NO! What the _FUCK!_" he shouted, pounding his fist on the tile flooring. "FUCK YOU!" he shouted at no one.

Behind him, Mark couldn't stand to see his friend in such pain... he'd already lost April, he almost lost Mimi last year, why couldn't someone just stay alive for him? He looked over at Joanne, and as soon as he saw her face, a tear ran down his face as well.

Just then, Mimi muttered something. Mark heard it, but he wasn't so sure Roger had caught it, for his sobs were too loud.

"Roger, shut up for a second!"

"Shut up?" he asked in an exasperated whisper. "You're asking me to—"

"Mmmnodheayedyem," came more muffled words.

With a look of pure joy and fear on his face, Roger pulled Mimi back from his body and looked at her. "How are you talking? You're dead." And with that, he was crying again. "Now I'm seeing things. Oh, God—"

But Mimi's eyes fluttered open and she was staring at Roger, a dazed and confused look on her face. "Why are you swearing like a sailor at me?"

"OH!" he shouted, and then he was crying, but Mark had never seen him more happy before in his life. "Oh, my God, Meems, I thought you were dead—you weren't moving—oh, Christ, that was scary," he breathed, and leant forward, just smelling her hair, hugging her close, like he never wanted to leave her side again. "Please don't hate me, baby, I'll do anything—just—just take me back. I promise, I won't do anything wrong, I just... I need you, Mimi."

But Mimi was barely listening to him. She kept rubbing the back of her head. "I'll take you back, Roger—but what did I _slip _on?" she felt across the tile.

Roger watched, confused. "What do you mean? Someone didn't do this to you?"

She laughed. "No, I was stupid enough to slip on something on the floor—" her hands groped around a piece of paper and she brought it to her face. "Oh, it's just a paper with a phone number on it, or something." She put it on the counter as she stood up, Roger helping her, a puzzled look on his face.

"A phone number? Who would have a phone number when the phones don't work?"

As he picked up the paper, he blanched. _6-11-89._

"What?" Mark asked. "Whose phone number is it?"

Roger shook his head and put the paper back down, turning around and facing Mark, his eyes watering. He tried to force out words, but nothing would come out from his dry throat. When he finally managed words, they were in a hoarse whisper. "Th—that's April's death date."

The moment these words exited Roger's mouth, a loud _click_ was heard and every window was suddenly covered by steel. A prerecorded voice announced, "Lock down initiated."

— — — —

"Mark, you're going to pace a hole through the floor," Joanne advised, raising her head from her hands.

They had relocated to Mark's room, where Roger had to more or less be dragged. As if he were crippled, Mark had put one arm around his shoulder and helped him walk. It was as if the death around him had weakened his outer shell, and the reminder of April was just something that sent him over the edge.

He was now lying on the bed, his bent knees over Mimi's straight legs. Her head was hanging off the edge of the bed and her curly hair was touching the floor. Her face was red, but she claimed that she could think better and feel better when her head was upside down and all the blood was rushing to it. "It's like being high," she had explained, "you feel delirious, it helps pain."

"Wait until you sit up and go through withdrawal," Joanne had noted, as she sat up from doing the same exact thing.

"I don't care if I pace a hole through the floor!" Mark shouted angrily, sending dagger glances at where Mimi was staring at him upside-down. "Who wrote that note? And who initiated the lock down? There's a timer on it, somebody in this room triggered the lock down to go off today! And somebody wrote down April's death date! I'll pace a hole forever and a day and I'll lock us all in here until someone confesses."

"Mark," said Mimi, shaking her head, "you can't lock us—"

"Wanna bet?" he growled. Then, he whipped around and changed the lock on his door... from the inside? "You didn't know about the locks? They lock on the inside as well—so only the person with the code can get out."

"But that's not good if you're the murderer," Mimi pointed out.

Mark seemed fed up. "I'm not the murderer, Mimi! Would you stop being so dense? We just found April's death date scribbled on a piece of _paper_. Like it was some sort of locker combination."

The loudest silence Mark had ever heard followed this statement.

"That's it," Joanne said, her voice reeking of discovery.

"That's what?" Mimi asked.

"That's it!" Joanne hopped up and pushed Mark out of the way, walking over to the locked door. "That's the combination to something! It's the—the code to the lock down!" Her eyes were burning wildly. "Quick, Mark, unlock the door!"

"Why?"

"I'll explain on the way there—unlock the door!"

Warily, Mark obeyed. The moment the door was open, Joanne tore outside and ran toward the emergency stairs, which she took two at a time to the ground floor. "April's death date was written like a code, and someone initiated the lock down—that must mean that it's the code, and we can figure it out, deactivate it—" she almost tripped down a couple of stairs and Mark and Roger grabbed her and steadied her. "—thanks—but if the person's already changed the password—" she shook her head and turned down the stairs again, into the eerie basement of the hotel.

She punched in the password—19366—and then the door slid open, revealing a room with several boilers and machines. The lights were all out. Joanne's breath hitched.

"Got a light?" Mimi asked, half-laughing, still slightly dazed from being upside-down. Hastily, Roger lit a match, providing for a bit of light.

"Okay," Joanne gulped, and Roger, taking this as a hint that she didn't want to go first, bravely walked with the match, being careful not to burn himself on the fingers. They felt along the walls until they came upon a small box with a number pad on it, and Roger sighed. "This is it," Joanne filled him in.

"How do you know all this?" Mark asked suspiciously.

"Didn't _anyone _read up in the packet that Mr. Grey gave us?"

The other three shook their heads. "No."

Joanne sighed. "Of course not." Then, she ran her fingers down the number pad. "When did she die?"

"Six eleven, nineteen eighty nine," Roger and Mark both replied, Roger more hoarser and quieter. Mark shot a worried glance over at him, but in the silence, they couldn't see.

She typed in the numbers. "Dammit, it didn't work." She tried again.

Behind them, Mimi turned around, facing the darkness. She thought she had heard something earlier... but figured it was just a figment of her imagination. But now she was certain she could hear something... the exhaling of breath... the scuffle of shoes. "Guys?" she asked carefully, but the three of them were talking. "Guys, I think I hear something," she admitted, her voice high and fearful.

"Huh? What?" Mark asked, but Roger took a step forward and pushed his girlfriend behind him. "What are we talking about?" Mark asked loudly, but Roger put a finger up behind his back, a choice finger in that of the middle of his hand. "Hey, don't flip me—"

"Shhh," Roger scolded, and bravely, he ventured forward into the darkness. He kept his voice and boots quiet as he took steps forward, before stepping on something.

He looked down and exhaled sharply.

A hand.

Collins' hand.

"AH!" Mimi screamed high pitched as her body was torn away from behind Roger's and thrown down at the concrete, and Roger grit his teeth and lunged out at the form. His body was easily thrown by the momentum smacking into a boiler and slumping to the ground, and at that time, Joanne turned around, seeing Mark coming towards her. Then he turned to run up the stairs.

Everything clicked at that moment for Joanne. Her mind was reeling. It was Mark. She had heard him move. Mark had torn Mimi away and attacked Roger, and then was walking back toward her as she turned around... everything ran through her head over again. She must have seen something. Something that she could prove against him.

"We have to save ourselves, Jo—they wouldn't want us to die trying to save them!" Which was true—he'd had a conversation about this with Roger some time ago. "Quick, they're coming!" and they took off up the stairs and into the foyer. "Let's take the stairs!" Mark shouted. "We'll meet on the fifth floor!"

Putting all sense aside, she came up with an excuse. "No, the elevator—I'm taking the elevator!" First off, she didn't want to be alone with Mark, and second of all, the stairs—who wanted to be stuck in a stairwell, in the dark, with a murderer on the loose? A murderer who could quite possibly be her albino companion.

When she made it up the stairs, she turned down the hall and started searching.

On the stairs, Mark took them four at a time, bounding as fast as he could. Then, he took a false step and went sliding down the stairs, his glasses smashing and his body going limp.

— — — —

When Roger woke up, blood was running down his face and he had a huge migraine. Then, he remembered the Latina somewhere behind him.

"Mimi?" he called, staggering around, his perif all screwed up. "MIMI?!"

"Roger?" Came her voice, slightly confused, as it had been that fateful night she almost died. "Roger, are you there?"

"I'm here, baby, I'm here—where are you?" he made a face as he stepped over Collins' body, terrified of looking at it once more. "You need to show me where you are." His burn ached in as he walked by more hot boilers and his body felt the need to collapse beneath him. "C'mon, Meems, we've gotta get out of here—we've got to get—get help—we've got to..."

But what _did _they have to do?

When he found her, she was curled up in a ball and her head was also bleeding, though not as profoundly his was. "Mimi, we have to get out of here—we have to—we just—"

But she was on her feet. "We need to go."

When they made it to the foyer, the question was what to do. Roger decided to take the stairs, and Mimi said she'd take the elevator. "We're meeting _right at the top of the elevator_. I'll meet you there—_don't move from there._ If you see Mark or Jo, holler, okay?" they agreed and parted ways.

He took the stairs as fast as he could, and when he made it to the stop, he instantly stopped at the elevator and waited.

Then something caught his eye.

"Jo?" Roger asked cautiously, walking down the dark, vacated halls of the fifth floor. Night was falling, and fast, and he felt across the wall for a light switch. He found one and turned it on hoping maybe the power was built up a bit—and light was there. He squinted down the hallway. He couldn't see anything. He moved away from the switch, taking one step at a time, expecting to hear something. "Mark?" he asked.

Mimi reappeared behind him, muttering something about the elevator not wanting to listen to her. Something was down the hall, a form.

He ran to it. "Oh, my God, Joanne!" he screamed, and knelt to her. She was breathing, but barely. "Joanne, who did this?" he demanded.

"I... don't... know... Mark... save... him... he's... on... the stairs," she breathed out. Joanne was delirious. All thoughts of suspecting Mark had left her—now she just wanted him safe. "Unless... he... came... no, he never... came..." her eyes were fluttering.

The lights went out. "Fuck," Roger muttered. "Mimi, stay here, I'm going to go get—I'm gonna look for Mark." He took off down the hall and to the stairs, where he searched them many times, looking for a trace of Mark's body. Nothing was there. Nothing.

Then Mimi was at the top of the stairs, lugging Joanne over her arm. "Roger, I was too scared to b—OH MY GOD!" Mimi's voice broke. Then she let out one scream of bloody murder. "MARK!" she saw his body underneath the stairs, the one place Roger had been about to look.

Slowly, she lowered Joanne's body next to Mark's and Roger quickly took their pulses.

Tears in his eyes, he looked up at Mimi. "Dead."

_Swallow._

**A/N:** Haaaa, I didn't tell you who died!

Okay... it's been too fucking long. Sorry, guys, I finished _Cuffed_—sob!—so this will be updated faster, I hope.

Oh, and most of you seemed pissed that I left you hanging as to how Collins died... that was the whole point!

Props to **LifeIsTooQuick**, who discovered something... ;) That I've fixed.

If anyone can explain why this is in the "red herring" chapter, in a PM ONLY, I will give you some sort of privileges. Or a clue as to who the murderer is.

I know the end of this is written like shit; I was just anxious to get it posted.

Reviewski!

–Steph.

(PS: Just got back from my first day of 8th grade... sheesh. I have two two-sided pages full of Spanish I have to convert. First day of Spanish, and the lady spoke in spanish for almost the whole class! What does _la química_ mean?!)


	9. Hug

_Ten Little Bohos  
_8. Hug  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__**Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
**__**A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
**__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

Mark had seen people come to their wit's end before. He remembered during some of the later visits to Life Support there had been a young man by the name of Charlie, who always was so quiet about whatever they were talking about. He'd never put his two cents in, and Mark had started to think that he was saving up all his change for something big.

That was exactly what happened, too. One day Charlie came in, his face as solemn as ever, and the moment Paul looked at him, his body language warped into a mixture between anger and sorrow and altogether torture—like it was torturing him just to be walking and being at Life Support.

"Charlie?" Paul asked, his voice as gentle as ever. "Are you okay?"

"No, I am not okay!" he bellowed, flinging his chair across the room and standing up, running a hand through his auburn hair. "NO, I AM _NOT _OKAY! People need to stop fucking asking me that, I am not okay!" his voice was fraying with his screams, his face was red, and he looked all together worn out.

Mark's camera remained in front of his face, but his eyes had since left the lens. He was now staring at Charlie himself, his eyes watering, feeling so terribly sorry for this man.

"I'm _not okay!_" he shouted, and then just like that, he collapsed into a different chair, his head in his hands, suddenly falling silent.

"Would you like to share?" Paul asked quietly.

Ever so slowly, Charlie, who looked like he was about to go on another rampage, locked eyes with a friendly girl named Rosealyn across the circle, and his face softened instantly. Then, he began to cry, tears falling down his face as he attempted to stay together. Mark had watched all of this, trying not to cry himself, wondering when Roger would get to this point.

"My mom," gasped Charlie, looking at Paul, "she died—she died last week... because of AIDS." He shook his head. "I was so close with her... and the AIDS... I don't want to look like she did," he whispered, "she was so helpless... and..." he started crying again. "I couldn't afford the bills. So now... now I've got no home."

There was an incredible silence, and Mark suddenly felt terrible for getting this on film, but dared not move, not wanting to break the spell that had been cast over them. Then, Rosealyn, petite and graceful, traveled so peacefully across the room, picked up the chair he had flung, and brought it next to his. When she looked at him, she very quietly said, "You could live with me."

All Mark really knew about Rosealyn was that she was HIV positive and had lost her entire family—parents, children, husband—in a vicious fire while she was working one day, and really hadn't spoken at Life Support much since. She usually had a thoughtful look on her face, but Mark knew that was just a façade she was so used to putting up.

This suggestion she was making clearly was not out of love; more compassion and friendship. Like she knew what it was like being in that position. "I have an extra bedroom," she offered, and she grasped his hands with hers. Their gazes locked for one moment, and then Charlie's eyes smoldered with something—thankfulness?—and he agreed to live with her.

Mark had seen plenty of emotions exploding out of people—he'd seen Roger go on his grief-stricken cries after April had died, he'd seen Roger scream in agony through withdrawal, he'd seen his own father die before his very eyes. However, Mark had never had one of these breakdowns.

The moment he woke up, he knew he was going to have one of these moments.

Not understanding where he was, he sat up at the speed of lightning and instantly regretted it, pain darts shooting to his head. There was a piece of paper on his bedside table, and next to it, a flashlight. Clicking on the flashlight, he put on his glasses and read the note.

_Mark—_

_Something happened... we were afraid you were dead. We've been up here with you all day and night, you haven't woken up—please don't be dead. If you're dead... I don't even want to think about it._

_Me and Mimi are in the third floor meeting room... right now you're on the third floor. There's a flashlight, you can meet us in there._

–_Roger_

Please don't be dead? Mark wondered what this phrase really meant. And why wasn't Joanne in the Meeting Room with them? Did that mean—

He gulped and jumped out of the bed, screaming when his feet hit the floor. He fell to the floor, holding onto his left kneecap and screaming. "FUCK!" he shouted, and then his shouts gave way to tears as he reached his lowest point. "What the fuck?" he repeated over and over, trying to grasp what was happening to his family. Joanne was dead. He knew it. He just knew that Joanne Jefferson had not lived through the night.

"Get up, Mark," he told himself, gritting his teeth through his dislocated knee, "get up and go see Roger."

Gripping onto the beside table, he pulled his body up onto his right leg, wincing with every step he took out of the room. It seemed that not only was his kneecap dislocated, but his ankle seemed sprained. He leant against the wall and located the Meeting Room—grateful when he found it was on the same side of the hall that he was on. He assumed that the lock down was still on, which meant that every door was unlocked, and so he pulled the door open.

Still grimacing through the pain, he took three uneasy steps into the room, and then Roger collided with him, forcing him into a hug. Feeling Roger's worry, he hugged him back, trying to comfort his friend. "Mark!" Roger cried, and pulled his best friend tighter. "Jesus, Mark, you scared the shit out of us—man, are you okay?"

When they were done hugging, Mark nodded, but his face was still screwed up in pain. "Tell me the truth," Roger pursed his lips.

Mark sighed. "My knee is dislocated and my ankle's sprained—and I have a headache." He shrugged.

Roger walked next to his friend and helped him walk over to a chair flanking the couch, where Mimi was fast asleep. "She konked out almost as soon as we got back from your room about a half an hour ago. She told me we should let you be. We'd been there all day."

If Mark hadn't grasped this a second ago reading the note, he did now. "Wait—all day? How long have I been out?"

"Since last night."

Roger looked for a trace of emotion on Mark's face, but concealing his feelings was something Mark was superb at. "It looks like you fell down the stairs," Roger said, getting off the subject.

"I did," he mumbled. "How did you find me? I think someone was moving me... I opened my eyes for a second, and I was under the stairs, and then I—OW!"

Roger had popped Mark's knee back in place, but he didn't miss a beat conversation-wise. "Well, me and Mimi found Joanne on the fifth floor, and she said something about you going down the stairs. I went down there and looked, and then Mimi spotted you. Joanne died right then and there." He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply. "What happened to _us?_" he motioned to Mimi.

Mark shook his head. "I thought I saw something, so I turned to look, and then I saw the two of you getting tossed by... something." He didn't add in the fact that he thought Mimi was faking and that she had done it. "I remembered that conversation that we had—remember? On the ride over here? You were talking about life-or-death situations. If anything ever happened, I was to get away." He sucked in a breath. "I didn't want to do that, but I didn't want Jo and I to be killed and then not have your killer fucking sued and killed with my own two hands."

His friend nodded.

"So we took off up the stairs—well, I took the stairs and tripped back down them—and Joanne took the elevator. She had some sort of idea about the Dead Room."

He paled.

"The Dead Room!" he shouted, and then he jumped up and hobbled to the door. "Come on!"

Behind him, Roger woke up Mimi and helped her out, and they met Mark in front of the elevator. "Mark has an idea about the Room," Roger told Mimi, and they loaded into the elevator. "We're going up there—do you have a flashlight, Mark?" He brandished his in front of Mark's face.

"Yeah," Mark said, showing him his. "Come on—" the elevator stopped and they exited, making a beeline for the Dead Room's door. He flicked on his flashlight and threw the door open, holding his breath as he did it. Everything was so silent, and he was honestly terrified to be in there.

The one thing that hit him was the smell—keeping all of the dead people in a single room was a bad idea, but in this situation, he wouldn't change it for anything. Using his flashlight, he practically tripped into the room and limped over to where each of them was, studying them with the flashlight. When he came to a certain person, he screamed.

"What?!" Mimi asked frantically, scuttling somewhere in the background.

"C-Collins is back," Mark muttered, his hands tracing the face of his best friend. He cringed when the coolness of Collins' skin met his warm fingers. For a moment, he stared into the open eyes of Thomas B. Collins, becoming hypnotized, his gaze locked with the dead mans' before him. He felt himself plunging into Collins' broken soul, his non-thumping heart, no longer filled with love for his friends, his brain, which was no longer filled with his information as a philosopher, his body, no longer filled with—

"Mark!" Roger whispered urgently, lifting Mark from his horrifying thoughts. "Mark! Mark, they all changed _positions!_"

Dropping his gaze finally from Collins, Mark turned and his face went white, he was sure of it. "Where are you?" he asked shakily.

"Just come toward my voice."

Mark limped across the large room, almost knocking Roger over, and when his bigger friend shined the light on everyone, he discovered that Roger was right. They all had moved. Every single person had changed positions and places. _Somebody was fucking with them_. Which one of his friends was doing this?

_Mimi_, nagged his head. _It would be so easy for Mimi to kill all of us off... she saved the pattern for her goddamned self. She stopped Collins' pattern for herself. She's keeping herself and Roger alive... though she'll probably kill him when he finds out too. _He shuddered. The thought of Mimi being the murderer scared him.

Next to him, Roger started moving forward toward where Angel's body was sitting upright, next to Collins, where Benny and Alison had been. Her arm was around Collins' shoulder, but in her hand was something else—Roger moved closer, now almost dropping his flashlight from shock. It was... _a book_.

"THIS IS IT!" he shouted, his voice ringing off of the walls of the room. "This is it! The book you guys thought I was bullshitting about! Look!" he waved the book flamboyantly in Mark and Mimi's faces. "'And Then There Were None' is the title," he noted, and then Mimi grabbed it from him and started flipping through the pages blankly.

Her face suddenly turned to that of horror. "Oh my God..." her voice sounded disturbed, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. Her mouth was ajar, and she looked like she'd just seen someone killed before her very eyes. "Oh, my God!" she shouted, and then she dropped the book, staring at it as if it were going to move.

"What?" Roger asked, and scooped it up, jamming it open. "Oh," he said stupidly, his face paling.

Every single page of the book was completely painted with blood. All of the words on the pages were running, making them impossible to read. Then, as he reached the middle of the book, he looked to the left page. _YOU _it read in bloody ink. He looked at the right side. _MADE_. He flipped the page. _A_. _BIG_. _MISTAKE_. _COMING_. _HERE_. _WITH_. _ME_.

He turned the page once more and dropped the book when he read the words written on the two pages. _You won't be needing that ferry, Mimi, Roger, and Mark_.

"Who did this?" Roger demanded in a shaky voice, pointing to the book that was now lying open before him. He kicked it toward Mark and watched as his friend read it. "Did you do this?" he demanded of Mark, and Mark quickly shook his head. "Meems?" he asked cautiously, and the woman shook her head, looking equally terrified.

"Somebody did it," Mark said, eyeing his friends carefully. "That... that's just... that's just wrong."

"Wait," Mimi put her hand up and looked down at the cover of the book. "Agatha Christie?" she picked the book up and studied it. "No way," she whispered.

"What?" Mark and Roger asked, inching closer to her.

"She—" Mimi's throat went dry and she swallowed and tried again. "She wrote that poem that the person's killing us by."

For half a second, everything was silent, but then, just like that, Mark and Roger both sprang forward in an attempt to grab the book from her, but she kept a firm grip on it and pulled it away from them. "Hey, hey, back off, you fuckin' animals," she narrowed her eyes at them but then turned back to the book. "It doesn't matter; it's impossible to read it anyway."

Just to humor himself, Roger grabbed the book and studied it before nodding in agreement. "Alright... can we get out of here?"

"Wait," Mark said, and then walked over to Maureen.

Nope. No _fresh _cuts.

Angel. No _fresh_ cuts.

Samantha. No_ fresh_ cuts.

Alison. No _fresh _cuts.

He continued down the line of his friends, and though some of them had cuts, none of them looked recently inflicted. How had this book been covered in blood? He turned around and faced Mimi and Roger. "Okay, hold out your arms," he demanded. "Roger, roll up your sleeves."

He slowly walked over to his friends and studied the top of their arms, looking for a cut. "Turn them over," he instructed. When he was sure that they weren't concealing cuts on their hands, he was going to turn and walk back toward the elevator, but then something caught Mark's eyes.

"Roger?" he asked quietly, looking up at his friend. Roger's eyes were guilty. "Roger, turn your wrists back over."

_The murderer grinned_.

Slowly, Roger turned his wrists over, and Mark eyed the scars running down his friends' arms. "You... did you..."

Mimi finally caught on, and she inhaled sharply. "_YOU'RE SLITTING YOUR WRISTS?_" she howled, grabbing Roger's arm and staring, her eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets. "ROGER DAVIS! I DON'T BELIEVE YOU! YOU SELFISH SON OF A BITCH—DID YOU BLEED ALL OVER THAT FUCKING BOOK?" she waved the book in his face.

"No!" he shook his head. "No! I didn't do that, I just... I cut because... I can't handle this," his brow furrowed and he tried to hold back his tears. "I can't handle death, Mark, you know that."

But Mark wasn't in his right mind at this time. He narrowed his eyes, furious, and took off out the door, before Mimi and Roger heard him scramble down the stairs.

Resisting the urge to beg, Roger cast a pleading look to Mimi, and she sighed and cast her gaze down. Then, she linked her arm through Roger's. "Come on, baby," she sighed, and the two of them walked down the stairs.

Of course, as soon as they got back to the Meeting Room, things went fucking out of control.

Mimi didn't know if she could hate two men more. "Why don't we all just stay up?" she put in, not thinking she could do that, but willing to as long as the guys shut up.

The boho boys were having an argument; who should stay awake? Roger had volunteered to, but then Mark pointed out that if Roger was the murderer, he and Mimi would be toast. Then Mark said he would, but Roger used his own words against him. Now all Mimi wanted to do was sleep, but maybe if she said she would, they'd stop arguing.

"Good idea," Mark muttered, and then he jumped onto the couch and started staring at the TV.

Mimi snuggled up to Roger, and within moments, she was asleep.

Of course, so weren't Mark and Roger.

— — — —

"Mimi?" Roger mumbled into the hair in front of him, placing a kiss in it. "Is Mark alive?" he asked.

He rolled over to the right, bringing a hand to his head and opening his eyes. He rubbed them and blurrily looked at Mark, smiling when he realized he was still alive. Contentedly, he closed his eyes and rolled back over, wrapping his arms around Mimi. "Ooh, Meems, you've gotten skinny, huh?"

He opened his eyes.

This wasn't Mimi.

He leapt up into the air, staring down at the body next to him. That was _not _Mimi's body. That was—oh, my God, that was Alison's body.

"Mark," he shouted, his voice climbing higher with every syllable he spoke. "Mark, where the hell is—YOU'RE NOT MARK!" he stared at Samantha's body in place of Mark's. "FUCK!" he shouted, and then he pushed open the door and ran into the stairwell, practically flying up the stairs, and when he finally made it to the fifth floor, he launched himself into the Dead Room.

"MARK!" he found his best friend in Samantha's old spot. "Mark, Mark, Mark, please wake up!"

Slowly, Mark's eyes opened, and as soon as Roger saw this, he pivoted and looked for Mimi.

When he saw her, his breath left him in a _whoosh_. She was in Collins' arms.

He ran to her, kissing her as hard as he could.

Her lips were cold.

Next to her, there was a note. _Three little Bohos walking in a zoo / a big bear hugged one and then there were two._

_And then there were two._

_There were two._

Looking over at Mark, Roger's strength left him. He collapsed to the floor and kissed Mimi's hand, her limp hand, her dead hand, her... he leant against her cold leg.

"Roger?" Mark whispered, coming next to his friend. "Roger, is she...?"

His face warped with complete devastation, Roger nodded at Mark, and then fell into his arm. Mark felt guilty. How could the murderer be Mimi? Now she was dead. So that left one candidate... Roger. Roger was the murderer. But... fucking _how? _Everything made less sense than it did when Maureen died.

_Hug._

**A/N:** :( Meems.

I don't know why, but for some reason the first half of this chapter just sort of wrote itself. And it SUCKS. I wrote this chapter TERRIBLY. I know. It's SOOOO TERRIBLY WRITTEN. This story is actually quite hard to write.

Haha, and then halfway through when I got writer's block,I turned on Spongebob and put on my Green Day and told myself, "WRITE."

**LifeIsTooQuick** won the "Red Herring" challenge, which I won't explain until the story's over.


	10. Frizzle

_Ten Little Bohos  
_9. Frizzle  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__**Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
**__**One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
**__One little Boho left all alone;  
__He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

Mark had never seen a man in so much agony.

Sure, when April died, Roger had been sad. Well, depressed. Yes, depressed was a better word for what Roger was for about a year after April died. But none of his friends were really sure—or, er, _had _been sure—if it was April he was missing, or if it was the drugs, or even if it was the fact that someone loved him back.

But what he and Mimi had had was real; there was nobody who could deny that. And Mark _knew _that Mimi wasn't supposed to be murdered. She was supposed to die in a hospital because of AIDS, with all of her friends before her, crying and wishing her luck wherever she was headed, and her sister should've been there, and her mother.

She was _not _supposed to die based on a poem.

She was _not _supposed to die third to last.

She was _not _supposed to be killed by Roger Davis.

Mark's throat tightened. Could the man who was now crying into his shoulder possibly have killed his significant other? He'd looked so long for this moment, nearly lost her, and he went and killed her? That wasn't right. How could Roger be the murderer?

Not really able to hold himself up, Mark reread the note several times. Who wrote like that? Who had penmanship like that? None of the girls, it was more of a manly scrawl. That was surely not Collins' writing, not his own, definitely not Roger's, and it looked nothing like Benny's. So how many people did that rule out?

Mark scratched his head, frustrated. _All of them_.

"Mark... Mimi... she's..." Roger attempted speaking but then broke off, falling into Mark's shoulder again. "Oh, my God, Mark, it's our fault. It's our fault, we were supposed to stay awake... I'm always going to live with this guilt of killing my love! _I KILLED MIMI MARQUEZ!_" he shouted, wailed... his voice was so full of emotion that Mark's heart took a nosedive.

"Roger, Roger, shh, it's okay, it's okay, come on—let's get you—let's go—... let's go downstairs in the other Meeting Room, okay?" Mark's voice wavered, and he hated himself for being weak at this point. Roger needed him. He needed to be strong. For Roger. For himself. There was nothing left to be but strong. Strong and numb.

Helping Roger to his feet, the two of them made the long travel to the elevator. In his hand Mark clutched the book. The moment they got into the extra Meeting Room, Roger covered his face with a pillow and lay down. "Ro—" Mark began, but he didn't get the whole statement out before Roger shouted, "Leave me the fuck alone," in a strangled sob.

— — — —

"No fucking sense," Mark muttered to himself seven hours later, still hunched over the same book. "That's what this makes; no fucking god damn shit sense." He shook his head and skimmed page 104. How many times had he tried to read this exact page? He'd lost count.

Roger sat up behind him, but Mark didn't turn around to look. He shifted in the bed, sitting up against the backboard, and then didn't speak, didn't cry, didn't make any sign of life. Mark exhaled and got back to work, his hands stained with the blood of one of his friends, not caring if he got AIDS or not at this point. _You guys made a big mistake coming here with me_. _You won't be needing that ferry, Mimi, Roger, and Mark._

Fuck, what did that _mean?_

"Did you find anything out yet?" Roger asked in a hoarse, calm voice, but Mark could hear the devastation behind it.

"Um, almost," Mark lied. Anything to soothe this man's pain. He was starting to think... well, maybe Roger didn't do it. Maybe it was himself. Maybe he was a fucking psychopath and he'd killed them. Or maybe they were all doing it. Maybe he was going to kill Roger. Or Roger was going to kill him. Or something.

"Fucking liar," Roger tried to retort happily, but his voice cracked and he choked down a sob.

Mark's heart tore again. This poor damn man. So fucking tortured. He'd already lost April. Why had someone taken Mimi away from him as well?

"I'm going to bed," Mark announced suddenly, and flung back his chair so hard that it went crashing into the bedpost behind him. From there, he collapsed into a chair in the corner of the bedroom, pulling a blanket that had been folded neatly on the arm of it. "It's been a long day."

Even though Roger knew he wasn't asleep, he didn't speak to him.

What he did was run through possibilities. It was the only way to keep Mimi off his mind. Tomorrow, he and Mark would search every room in the place very carefully and see if they found anything suspicious. Right now, Roger wasn't concerned about Mark. He was concerned about somebody out in the woods.

It was funny how Roger didn't blame Mark whatsoever. As far as he knew, Mark would not and could not kill his friends. That was just his style. He could _never _do it.

And it was funny how Mark _knew _Roger couldn't deal with death, and yet he blamed him for every single bit of it.

Friendship works in nifty ways these days.

Mark thought about staying awake all night, he seriously did, but then he thought about it. Let Roger kill him. How could he possibly care? All of his friends were dead. And so, with that thought on his mind, Mark fell asleep.

— — — —

When Roger woke up, he was on the floor.

Why was that?

He jumped up, first doing a complete three sixty to make sure there was no one with a weapon around him, and then doing another one to make sure Mark was still alive. And there he was, laying on the bed, breathing up and down, normally. Good. That was good. They'd both survived the night.

Suddenly, Mark shot up as well, his glasses askew, face confused. "What happened?"

"I _just _woke up—hey, I think I'm gonna go take a shower, we have electricity now," he motioned to the overhead light that they'd turned on last night, only to find the electricity still off. Now it was illuminating the room.

Mark nodded. "Okay."

Without even grabbing another set of clothes, Roger walked into the adjoining bathroom and quickly stripped down. When he stepped into the shower and turned on the warm water, he practically melted. He could've stayed there all day. All night. Forever. He could've _lived _in that shower for the rest of his—

Why was there blood coming out of the drain?

Roger jumped back so far that his head knocked into a long line of flowery-smelling shampoos, pushing each of the bottles to the floor of the tub with a loud _thunk_. Then, he slipped, falling as well and twisting his ankle. He landed on top of one of the shampoo bottles and both of his shins were now splattered with blood... he withheld the urge to wretch.

"Roger?" Mark's call was panicked. "Roger, are you okay?"

"Y—_SHIT!_" Roger's words were cut off by the loud smacking of an axe, and then a violent pain in his wrist. Where the hell had that come from? He had tried to pull back the shower curtain and the butt end of an axe had just landed on his wrist. "FUCK!" Now he was bleeding, and his wrist hurt so bad, and there was someone in the bathroom, he could _hear _it—

The power cut.

The shower stopped.

The lights went out.

The only sound was Roger's blood; dripping from his wrist and onto the floor. Someone was dumping something outside of the curtain. Closing his eyes, he took the bloody axe, pulled open the curtain, and then hummed it into the dark bathroom. Someone screamed and then there was clattering, and somebody scrambled somewhere. Roger was becoming confused, the room spinning.

And then there was a brilliant light.

Gasoline.

Somebody had poured gasoline on the floor.

And thrown a match down.

"FUCK!" he shouted, his voice several octaves higher than normal. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!" He tried to turn on the water, but it was out. Thinking fast, he emptied each of the shampoo bottles on it, and tried to scoop up water that was still in the tub section. However, the fire was still growing, and Roger was still getting woozy.

There was another flash of light, and the door was kicked open, but Roger could see no more—he was swirling through darkness.

— — — —

Roger awoke to shuffling papers.

He turned over in his bed, but a bruise in his back made him twist back. The shuffling stopped, but Roger didn't want to open his eyes, he was so comfortable. "Roger, are you okay?" Mark asked, his tone deadly serious, and so Roger decided to open them. "Thank God, Christ—somebody tried to burn the bathroom down, tried to kill you."

"Yeah, I was there," Roger replied.

Mark's face didn't move. "Someone tried to kill you," he said again, only this time, his voice was comprehension. This meant... Roger wasn't the killer! "You aren't the killer!" Mark exclaimed.

Roger winced as he looked at the bandages Mark had crudely put on his cut. "No shit, Sherlock."

Mark sighed. This was going to be a long day.

— — — —

"What's this room?"

Mark and Roger had just finished checking up every single room on the first through fourth floors, and now were on their final room on the fifth. They hadn't found _anything _that looked mildly dangerous... but who knew. They had to look in the last room just to say they'd searched the whole building. Maybe they'd get a prize.

And boy, did they.

Roger pushed open the door, and what they saw was _equipment._

Cameras. Monitors. Wires.

The two boys gasped at the same time.

The first thing Roger did was pivot and proceed to smash his fist into the wall. "FUCK!"

"That's not cool," Mark said in a hypnotized voice. "That _sucks_."

"They've been watching us," Roger exhaled.

"No shit, Sherlock."

He shot Mark the bird.

Damn, they were delirious.

They quickly began to examine the equipment, but there was no evidence as to who it was.

But then—

"Lock down is now deactivated."

Suddenly, sunlight was streaming in from windows, and the lights that had returned while Roger was sleeping were no longer needed. Sunlight. The lock down was deactivated. _They could go outside._

They ran out of that bedroom as fast as they could and basically tripped down the stairs. When they made it to the front door, they split paths, Mark going directly toward the water, and Roger going somewhere in the woods. "FRESH AIR!" Roger was shouting, and Mark wanted nothing but to see the ocean sparkle before him.

When he got there, he didn't care—he stripped down to his boxers, took of his glasses, and dove in. It felt so good to have the warm water around him, and the warm sun beating down on him, and the nature, trees, the oxygen, the life.

But something was out of place.

The fire.

Where Roger had gone.

Mark ran out of the water as fast as he could and fell into his jeans.

As far as he knew, he was slow, but his feet took him there as fast as he could. Running, running, running. Roger couldn't be dying. Not Roger. Anyone but Roger. Roger could not die. That was _impossible_.

"ROGER!" he shouted, already sobbing, already knowing what was coming. "ROGER?!" his voice was high. "_ROGER!_"

If anyone could've heard this screaming, they would be crying with him, on their knees, holding their hearts. "ROGER!" he shouted again, sounding like a small child lost in Disney World. His heart was now nearly failing, his breath was coming in short intervals, and all he wanted was to hug his best friend at least once more. He was going to. No matter how bloodied Roger was, Mark was going to wrap his arms around him.

"ROGER!" he shouted, and he ran right past the flames, stopping when he discovered something.

There was a chain.

A silver chain, glistening in a pile of ashes.

Ashes that had once been Roger.

"NO!" Mark howled, screaming, crying, clawing at the ground. "NO, NO, NO! ROGER!" he tore at the grass, looking for Roger, Roger had to be here, Roger couldn't be dead, Roger _was _here, he was his best friend, Roger Davis was NOT dead. "ROGER, NO! ROGER!" his heart ripped. "ROGER!" he choked.

There was a piece of paper wrapped around the chain, and it unrolled in a breeze and flew into Mark's face.

_Two little Bohos sitting in the sun / one got frizzled up and then there was one_.

"Roger," Mark whispered, and then he lay down in his best friend's ashes. He cried himself to sleep. Everything was peaceful there.

_Frizzle._

**A/N:** WHY DID I HAVE TO KILL ROGER?

This is depressing. I can't live with myself.

Arie, please don't kill me.

AHHHH ROGER IS DEAD. ):

Chapters start getting shorter from here on in! There really wasn't much to put in here, except Roger angst, and so it's only like six or seven pages long as opposed to like, what, ten pages? Oh well, I'm the author, I call the shots. (:

So I heard **lovelive22** has a sick new story out called "Boho Days"... everybody read it or die.

Thanks! (;

Oh, and I have a boyfriend now... yay! (:

–Steph.

PS: Why were people pissed that I killed Mimi? They'll all be dead when I'm done with them.

ROGER IS DEAAAAD.


	11. Hang

_Ten Little Bohos  
_10. Hang  
_Ten little Bohos went out to dine;  
__One choked his little self and then there were nine.  
__Nine little Bohos sat up very late;  
__One overslept himself and then there were eight.  
__Eight little Bohos traveling in Devon;  
__One said he'd stay there and then there were seven.  
__Seven little Bohos chopping up sticks;  
__One chopped himself in halves and then there were six.  
__Six little Bohos playing with a hive;  
__A bumblebee stung one and then there were five.  
__Five little Bohos going in for law,  
__One got in Chancery and then there were four.  
__Four little Bohos going out to sea;  
__A red herring swallowed one and then there were three.  
__Three little Bohos walking in the zoo;  
__A big bear hugged one and then there were two.  
__Two little Bohos sitting in the sun;  
__One got frizzled up and then there was one.  
__**One little Boho left all alone;  
**__**He went and hanged himself and then there were none.**_

Mark didn't understand anything anymore.

He was dead.

Roger was dead.

Roger's body was now the ashes before him.

Roger, the murderer, was dead.

Roger Davis, who had killed his friends, was dead.

Roger. He wasn't alive.

He was dead.

But what about Mark?

His thoughts were scattered about as the sun hit his glasses and a glare stung his eye. If Roger was the murderer... and he was dead... how was Mark going to die? Was that the last line of the poem? It ended at one? But wasn't the book called "And Then There Were None?" Didn't that mean that in the end, there were _none?_ Mark was supposed to die.

All he knew was that he didn't want to live anymore.

Was he allowed to think that? Or was he selfish for wanting the thing each of his friends had received? All of his friends were probably up there, having some fucking drinks, screwing the fuck around, while Mark was fuckin' down on Earth, wishing death upon himself. Mark Cohen wanted to fucking die, and they were already there.

Blindly, through his tears and still exhaustion, Mark stumbled back into the hotel, and then fumbled with the key into the first floor Meeting Room. Something about this place made him explode with joy—something extremely reminiscent. He felt at peace with himself, with his friends.

"_Oh, my God..."_

"_I am not worthy."_

"_We must bow down to its mightiness!"_

"_It's beautiful."_

"_Don't let me in there, I might break it."_

"_Oh, come on, Roger, what are you gonna break? The beautification? Come on."_

Mark whipped around. Voices. He was hearing voices. But these voices weren't in his head like Samantha's and Maureen's had been so long ago; no, these voices were echoing off the hallways, the ghosts of his friends, the memories. They were coming to haunt him. Mark Cohen was going to be murdered by the ghosts of his friends.

Terrified, confused, worried, Mark jammed the key card into the lock and opened the door, flying across the room and leaping onto the couch, sitting there with his legs drawn up around him. Something was going to get him. The floor, under the couch, under the table. _Choke, sleep, stay, chop, sting, Chancery, hug, frizzle_.

Nine friends. He had nine friends. One of them was not his friend. One of them had killed the rest. It was either Roger or Mimi.

Roger's death could've easily been brought upon itself. There hadn't been much rain; the fire could've ignited and Roger could've stupidly stumbled into it. So that meant that Mimi had killed herself after killing the rest, and then left Mark and Roger to deal with their psychotic feelings and their insecurities.

Or Roger did it. Roger could've killed Mimi, killed Samantha, killed Maureen, killed April, killed Samantha...

Mark's thoughts were running together. He killed Samantha. He killed Maureen. He killed

April—why did April keep showing up?

He killed them. Killed them all.

Or Mark could've done it.

Now he was blaming himself, his schizophrenic self. What if he did it? What if Mark killed all of his friends, and now he wanted to kill more so badly, he wanted to kill himself? What if part of him was evil? What if, what if, what if? What if Samantha had lived? What if _fucking _Alison hadn't _fucking _suggested the _fucking _Westport Hotel? What if his newest film was about, oh, fuck, he didn't know, about his _life?_

Not his life, anymore. He had two lives. He was schizophrenic.

Struggling, he kept his eyes open. He had to. In case he killed himself. In case Mimi killed him. In case Roger killed him. In case, in case, in case. But his eyes closed. _Wake up_. That was Maureen's voice! And Samantha's! His eyes snapped open. "Is that you guys?" his voice sounded alien to his own ears.

_Hey, Marky, _their voices sounded happy. _Did you figure out who it is yet?_

"It was Roger! Mimi! Roger! Me! Mimi! Roger, Me, Mimi, Me, Mimi, Roger, Mimimimimeme..." he trailed off, falling back onto the couch. His head was too heavy. He couldn't hold it up. "How did the fire get there?" he asked himself, exhaling deeply. "How did the fire get there?"

_The murderer did it_, giggled Samantha and Maureen. _Why don't you go in your old bedroom, on the first floor?_

He felt the need to listen to them.

Mark had just given a name to the words, "Going insane, going mad."

Hands shaking, Mark found the one object that he hadn't seen in almost a month on his bed.

_His camera_.

He dove toward it, his heart fluttering, longing to see the memories of his friends that were hidden in it.

As soon as he turned the camera on, that was _not _what he saw.

There was the video of Mimi and Angel cooking, and instantly he started sobbing; not even able to see the image before him anymore. Then, it cut violently to Maureen choking and falling to the floor. Mark frowned. Who had had his camera at that time? But sure enough, there it was; Maureen dying before him.

There was the word "choke" in old-style film writing.

Next—a view of a person dressed in all black burking Angel. Next to them, Collins was silent, unmoving, but Angel was thrashing. The only sound was that of the bed shaking, and then one final _whoosh _as the air exited Angel's lungs. In the same font, it said, "sleep."

Next it showed a nighttime scene in the woods, the murderer circling Samantha, Samantha saying, "I knew it was you all along!" but then there was a knife and Samantha was screaming, very loud. "Stay."

This time it flashed to all of them around the campfire, laughing and smiling. It then cut to Benny being ran at with an axe, and there was a violent shot of the axe going into his mid section. The murderer then pulled the axe out and collapsed next to the victim, sobbing herself. "Chop."

There was a shot of Mark singing "The Phantom of the Opera" and then jumping off the table, thinking he could fly, but it quickly changed to someone chasing Collins out of the Dead Room, tripping him, and then picking him up to shoot him. The man went limp on the ground, and the murderer split. "Chancery."

The next one was interesting—first it showed Mark tripping and then falling down the stairs, but it cut to Joanne being brutally hurt somehow, it wasn't clarified, and then Joanne collapsing to the ground. "Swallow."

Then there was Mimi, being carried out of the room with tape over her mouth. She was brought up the stairs to the Dead Room, brought into Collins's arms—Collins, Mimi's teddy bear—and then the killer pulled Collins's arms so hard around her that her lungs must've crushed, either that or she suffocated, and the word "hug" illuminated the screen.

The most recent was shown. Roger running through the forest, but then stopping turning around to a giant wall of fire. Many branches fell on top of him, and he fell, becoming consumed in flames, and Mark knew that, had he not covered his face with his hands, he would've seen the chain that Roger always wore around his waist in ashes, along with the word "frizzle."

That was it.

That. Was. It.

And as soon as Mark spun around, there it was, in the corner of his bedroom.

...Along with the rest of his friends.

Sure enough, there they all were, lined up. Maureen, Angel, Samantha, Benny, Alison, Collins, Joanne, Mimi, Roger. Well... not exactly Roger. More like... Roger's ashes, and Roger's chain. Mark suddenly wondered if he could catch AIDS from a positive's ashes... but then he realized he wouldn't be needing that.

Because in the corner of his bedroom, there it was.

A noose.

He sucked in a deep breath. After everything that happened. After this month of hell. After this month of _torture_ and loss... Mark was done, he was so ready to end his life. And so, to his own benefit, he pulled up a chair right next to the noose and eyed his friends. "I'm so sorry," he choked, and put the noose around his neck. "I'll see you in a minute," he whispered.

_No, you won't_, said Maureen and Samantha. _Marky, you're going to hell for killing yourself. Don't you see? You aren't the murderer. But you can't make it out alive either. The murderer really is... _they giggled. Mark wanted to sock both of them.

Sucking in another deep breath, Mark knocked the chair out from underneath him.

Mark saw one thing before he died.

Alison laughing.

_But—_he thought, life deprived of him, _isn't Alison—_

He went limp.

His glasses slipped off his face.

Mark Cohen was dead.

_Hang_.

**A/N:** (:

I am so very evil.

One more chapter.

–Steph.

PS: Oh, the other day in history, we talked about anarchy... XD I felt the need to scream "REVOLUTION, JUSTICE, SCREAMING FOR SOLUTIONS" etc. This is exactly what she said: "There can't be anarchy—we need governments to keep law and order."

XDD I almost died. I was like THANK YOU GODS OF JESSE L. MARTIN!

More PS: how many people knew Mark was going to die this chapter? If so, then you're not an idiot (:


	12. Epilogue: Documenting Fiction

1**Epilogue: Documenting Fiction**

_Hilarious._

_It was all hilarious. A game of cat and mouse, for sure. _

_My name is Alison Nicole Grey, and I am responsible for the murder of nine individuals that were stupid enough to go on a vacation to a deserted island with me._

_Through the words of a famous poem, I managed to kill them perfectly, and none of them had enough evidence to prove it was me. Sure, I slipped a few times. But this single poem piqued my interest and got me into the thirst for murder._

_Ten little Indian boys went out to dine;_

_One choked his little self and then there were nine._

_Nine little Indian boys sat up very late;_

_One overslept himself and then there were eight._

_Eight little Indian boys traveling in Devon;_

_One said he'd stay there and then there were seven._

_Seven little Indian boys chopping up sticks;_

_One chopped himself in halves and then there were six._

_Six little Indian boys playing with a hive;_

_A bumblebee stung one and then there were five._

_Five little Indian boys going in for law,_

_One got in Chancery and then there were four._

_Four little Indian boys going out to sea;_

_A red herring swallowed one and then there were three._

_Three little Indian boys walking in the zoo;_

_A big bear hugged one and then there were two._

_Two little Indian boys sitting in the sun;_

_One got frizzled up and then there was one._

_One little Indian boy left all alone;_

_He went and hanged himself and then there were none._

_I thought it was perfect. I could see it all over the news—"The cleverest murderer since the Zodiac strikes nine innocent Bohemians on a deserted island, home of the new Westport hotels. By following the lines of a poem, this murderer proves themself intelligent." I longed for my name to be all over that. _

_Of course, I could have killed them all wide out in the open—there was no contact to the outside world from this island. But there was more of a rush to do it in silence. A thriving feeling as the others were terrified and I merely sat back and acted. _

_That's what it was, acting. In my mind I started thinking of the murderer and myself as two different people to reduce slipping up on my part. It was sort of schizophrenic, but it also cured my erratic heartbeat at night for fear of someone discovering me, noticing that I'd fucked up or something, which I did plenty of._

_Before I take my own life—I know that somehow I'll be proven guilty, and I'd hate to live in jail—I'll explain just exactly how I killed each of these people. Why? Just for giggles. I want it to be documented; this is such a fabulous thing that I want to share with the world. _

_First to go was Maureen. This was because I simply don't like her. Always happy, perky, sunshiny. I figured that she'd still keep that attitude up after everyone had been killed, and it was starting to get obnoxious. I had to figure out a plan—I was starting to itch with the desire to put this into action already._

_It took me a while to figure out that Maureen was allergic to nuts. I needed to plan the perfect murder for the first one—first impressions mean everything. It was disappointing that the nimrods didn't know it was intended murder at first, but things could only get better. _

_I overheard Mark telling a joke about when they were younger that every time he said the word "nut" around Maureen she would freak out because she was fatally allergic to them. Bingo, I had a place to build off from._

_It was hard to sneak the nuts into her taco. When Angel and Mimi looked away, I pretended I was reaching for the salt when I really dropped a few nuts into the taco. I made a point to deliver that one to Maureen. I might've possibly been discovered if I accidentally put them in someone else's._

_But she was quickly down, and that stupid blond Samantha found her. Roger tried to perform CPR—what the fuck? She wasn't _drowning_, Rog—and Mimi got jealous for a second, a second in which I almost cracked up laughing. When Roger came back saying that the intercom was broken (of course I'd already known that), I'll bet that at least one person in that room thought that he'd broken it. Perfect._

_One down. Eight to go._

_Overslept. That was easy._

_But hard as well. When I heard that Thing 1, Thing 2 and Sir-Films-It-All managed to get themselves stuck outside, I was terrified that my plan would be foiled. It was hard to hide my trouble from the girls, but I managed, all of those years of acting class paying off._

_It wasn't my doing that everyone got incredibly filthy drunk that night, more like a wonderful coincidence. Luck was purely on my side through this entire ordeal. No matter how much of a light sleeper _any _of them were, if you're as stoned_ _as we were, you sleep like a rock._

_Why Angel? Because she's the most intelligent of them all, and she was always paying attention. If I messed up even once, she would've caught me. Her eyes were that of a writer's—every time you looked into them you could feel her analyzing you, looking into your soul, pulling your secrets out of the cages they lived in._

_Doing the job of killing the dyke was pretty damn easy—just sat on her chest, hard, gripped my hand over her throat_ _and used my other hand to cover her mouth. No struggle, and in moments she was burked. Her little ol' spouse didn't wake up._

_The BF frickin' G was heartbroken, however, when he found out that his little Angel was dead. I took it all in stride: well, now she could be an official Angel._

_At that point I ran off and pulled out some acting, pounding on the intercom and hoping someone heard me and made note of this. If not, eh, working out the acting of so, even better. I stood up and walked back into Angel's room to be greeted by Roger, who was clearly screwed up by this. It almost made me laugh—after April's death, he'd never handled it well, ever._

_Then it was Roger's turn to go schizo—he started talking to himself and Benny brought him into the adjacent room, trying to calm them. Screams were exchanged and soon Mark entered, the scrawny Jewboy separating the two big guys. _

_Then Mark and Sammy started fighting. Now's a great time to tell you about the microscopic cameras I set up in each of the rooms. Through holes in the wall I could watch everyone's move on the top floor, one of the Meeting Room's conjoining rooms. Each night I'd play back everyone's recordings. Sammy was accusing Mark, Mark was pleading with her, saying he loved her._

_Per-fucking-fect._

_That was when I pulled a totally random move and took Roger's AZT. Why? Just to pose a threat. It's not like I really wanted him dead, it was more to remind them that I was here and that I knew everything they didn't think I knew._

_But they did surprise me when Mark mentioned Angel's AZT. Of course! I should've taken hers first, or saved her until later. But that was okay, not important._

_Mark launched into this whole spiel about why he didn't want to believe the murderer was one of us—who the fuck else would it be, Mark?—and Roger was like COUGH HACK COUGH "Mark's a fucking murderer." COUGH SNEEZE._ _It was hilarious, and I giggled a bit, but no one picked up on it._

_Mark socked Roger and left. Roger went after him but Mimi stood in front of him, and apparently just seeing her face made him cry and reminded him of April and yada yada yada. "She was so DEAD!" or something dramatic like that. Everything that's pale and doesn't move reminds him of April—he sees toothpicks and starts crying. Fucking wimp._

_Devon. This had been one of the more difficult... obviously no one knew anything about the place near Canada, so I'd have to make an analogy. A terribly rainy and cold place, I killed Samantha on one of her nightly walks in the rain. _

_And then Mark revealed that Samantha's aunt had lived in Devon, and that was when I knew God was on my side for some reason. Yes, God was helping me murder these "starving artists." Regardless, the cards were all falling into my lap, yet I was only waiting until all shit hit the fan and everything tumbled on top of me. But for now, everything was going great, smooth sailing all the way._

_Killing her had been quite easy, actually—she usually went for walks around the house at night, or walks around outside. I picked a night that she'd gone outside and chased her about before finally meeting her. I met her eyes and grinned my evil smile and winked at her. "Who'da thunk, Sammy Whammy? I guess you'll never be Mark's fiancé." I threw the ring uselessly at her. "That loser is still sticking around with you after all you're accusing him."_

_And I killed her._

_Damn, did it feel good._

_See, this was when they finally started understanding the poem._

_I was quite glad that at least two of them knew of the poem, and even more gleeful that Angel had read the book (more on that later). However, once again to my advantage, they couldn't predict the next lines, only recollect them from whatever happened._

_Killing Benny was hard. Very hard. When he looked at me with those loving eyes of his as I brought the axe down on his stomach, he sent me a pleading look, one that would remain in his eyes forever. It was like he knew that I didn't want to kill him, but in my twisted mind it was necessary. Everyone needed to be dead. Everyone had to die._

_Of course, Roger had to go and almost get mauled by a bear. And Mimi almost had to die._

_Ah, Mimi._

_The reason Mimi didn't go next was for my own benefit, really. First of all, it pissed me off that they thought they were figuring out my amazing tactics. I really didn't have a pattern going. Also, it would make them suspect Roger. How could he kill his Mimi? The other thing—though I'm not proud to admit it—is that I was fearful of Roger's promise. He probably _would _murder me if he woke up and saw me killing Mimi. _

_Roger really was my target. The whole time, I wanted to keep him alive, mostly because it would make him look like the murderer. And then with Mimi not dying, that just added the icing onto the cake. _

_Sting was the perfect opportunity for me to "die."_

_I was never allergic to bee stings. I don't know what possessed Joanne to believe I told her that—call it a stroke of good luck. I told Mimi and Maureen, but of course Maureen was dead. Being dead was hard, but all those acting classes I took paid off. In their frenzies, no one noticed how alive I truly was. They left me in the "dead room" with the rest of the Bohos, so I just stood up and became a night owl._

_There was really no other possible person to die with that phrase, unless of course Mark had really gotten stung. There never were any bees, though—I merely shouted the word and then dropped to the ground, and then Joanne screamed after me. It worked—Mark was terribly spooked and Joanne was in tears._

_If you haven't caught on yet, I'm not allergic to bee stings._

_This line of the poem I was most worried about—what if someone who wasn't so hysteric noticed that I was alive? What if they discovered that the bee stinging _couldn't _have been intentional and that instantly led them to me?_—_but after it was all said and done, I realized I was stupid for giving my friends smarts credit that they didn't deserve. We were _bohemian. _The smartest one was kicked out of MIT because he did some crazy shit. The cleverest one was dead._

_Damn, I'm brilliant._

_Most of you wonder why I didn't kill Joanne with the line that goes with law. Well, you see, everybody thought that because, oh, boy, Mimi didn't die, so Joanne is definitely going to, it's law, yada yada yada, she loves lawyer shit—gee, sorry, doesn't work that way. She was going to die when I wanted her to die, which was next._

_It was hilarious how she delivered that line perfectly that night. I watched them all drink, and I watched them all come down, and I watched as Mimi almost caught this bit of info. I just grinned and laid back, knowing that they couldn't catch me now, I was innocent no matter virtually what happened._

_Unless they caught me moving, but that wasn't possible. Not anymore._

_Collins was the closest guy friend I had out of them, except for Roger. But I could tell Collins _anything_, and he'd listen to me and he'd hear me out and give me his point of view. As I killed him that night, I just looked at him like he was another one of my victims instead of my good friend._

_Part of me was horrified about the gun—what if someone woke up?—but I merely just shot him and then ran back to my place on the table, but not after snatching Angel's book, of course. Part of me killed Collins because he knew too much, and part of me just felt like he should die now. That's my logic for you._

_Roger's slip up about Benny—well, it wasn't really a slip up. He was just too stupid to realize that he had been there in the Dead Room. It was amazing how Roger was getting all the heat for what I was doing, but it was starting to get annoying, really._

_When Mimi found out about the note, I was terrified, but no one could figure out what it was for. Plus, Roger was suspected. I purposely made it April's death, I knew I would remember that day, and I hadn't thought about how it would make him look guilty._

_The match in the boiler room was unexpected. As I was watching the cameras, I saw them having this conversation and shot down to the boiler room as fast as I could, switching the code. I was just about to leave when they had arrived, so I cut the power and hung behind, around Collins' body that I'd moved for purposes like these._

_Well, Collins' body was more of a freak-out thing. If they ever made the connection with the paper, Collins' body would be down there to freak them out and make them fear me more. Heh, like that was necessary._

_I knocked Mimi out then, simply shoving her into the concrete, and then I took out Roger, slamming his head into a white-hot boiler. Mark and Joanne managed to escape after seeing Collins' body, Mark took the stairs and Joanne the elevator, to different parts of the hotel. Joanne went just where I wanted her to—the fifth floor, where the dead room was. Her idea was that one of the dead people must've been the threat... so she went up there, my "red herring" or misleading clue being either Mark or Joanne almost dying._

_Of course I chose Joanne. _

_Next was Roger._

_Jesus, was this hard. Roger and I had always been close, even though he didn't trust Benny. I originally tried to kill Roger while he was showering—hmm, I don't know, maybe I could get one final look at his sexy body?—but I fucked up and he hit me with his own bloody axe, giving me AIDS right then and there. I escaped out of one of the ceiling vents and threw down a match after I poured the gasoline._

_Leave it to SuperMark to get Roger out of there. Of course._

_So I decided to pull a chance—I shut the lock down off. And like the good boys they are, they did exactly what I wanted them to do—go separate ways. Mark went directly for the ocean, and Roger ran into the forest. I tailed him quickly. By simply throwing a match, the forest lit up, and the idiot died._

_Frizzzzzzle._

_Why did I leave Mark last? Well, even though I hadn't been around very long, Maureen had opened up to me so much that it was impossible _not _to know his personality. She'd explained to me all about their childhood, how they used to date, and how Mark was bipolar_ _and suicidal for a short time. How he was sick of his father disapproving and his mother not caring, and his sister overshadowing him in everything he did._

_He slit his wrists for a while, I learned, and the first thing he knew how to tie in Boy Scouts was a noose. However, he got over that stage quickly after Maureen discovered all this, and once Roger found out, he threatened the boy to no end, by basically saying, "If you don't end your own life by doing this, I'll do it for you." Needless to say, Roger's threats can go a mile._

_It was a hard decision, whether or not to leave Roger or Mark last. Roger would do the same thing. He was suicidal for a lot longer, I also discovered from Collins and Maureen, mostly from Mark. Apparently, his father was abusive and his mother was a drunk/junkie day in and day out. Even while Mark was doing it and Roger was screaming at him to stop, he was a hypocrite. Maybe because he knew that Mark had so much going for himself and he himself had so little. _

_He also overdosed on pills, smoked up from age twelve, took a lot of his mother's pot, and, as said before, slit his wrists on three hour intervals. _

_What initially_ _came to me was that Roger would be a perfect choice for the last person, but as time grew on, I became more aware of Mark's bitching as being "the one to survive." Just to make everything so full of irony, I decided to leave albino boy at the end, basically to answer his own question of, "What do I do when I'm alone?" He'd of course kill himself._

_And so he was killed. Every so often he'd visit the Dead Room and I'd try to spook him by blinking or moving ever so slightly, as if he were going crazy. And then, right in that room before us, where I'd left a noose hanging from the ceiling right above a chair, I watched as Mark Cohen, my final victim, hanged himself._

_And suddenly it was over._

_The first thing I felt was relief. Relief that I'd done it all, relief that I didn't have that burning desire to kill anymore, that lust to see them all dead before me. And when they were, the first _action _I did was throw up. In the corner of the room, I heaved up the breakfast that I'd sneaked and then dry heaved a few more times._

_They were _dead. _Benny was dead. My love. My husband. I had _murdered _him. Maureen, the annoying one who had truly been a friend to me, was dead. Roger, the one who'd helped me the most after Benny died, was dead. Mimi, one of my closest girlfriends, was dead. Joanne, another close one. Dead. Samantha, the one who felt my uncomfortableness near these people who'd accepted me, the one who probably _was _my closest friend. I'd killed her. Collins, the best guy friend a girl could have, dead. Angel, the forgiving soul, the one who I'd have those long talks with. Dead._

_Dead. All of them were dead._

_And I'd done it._

_The realization hit me next, the fact that I was alone with all of these dead souls. I'd probably be haunted for the rest of my life. Karma would come back and bite me in the ass. I would never lead a normal life again._

_So, I tied another noose and had placed my head through the hole when I realized that I wanted this documented. I wanted to be remembered for something._

_Roger'd joked many times about Mark's recurring spiel. "How do you document real life when real life's getting more like fiction each day?" It's exactly what I'd just done. I'd taken a poem and made fiction a reality, a terrifying, heart wrenching_ _reality. I've just documented real life. Documented fiction._

_XOXOX,_

_**Alison Nicole Grey**_ :)

**A/N:** oooohhh...

Any questions regarding the story? Please ask them, I'll post one more chapter answering all your questions! Anything from how I decided, how I worked it out, anything else about Allie.

–Steph


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